Precarious Situations of Care Workers in Home-Based Elder Care in Slovenia. (February 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Hrženjak, Majda
• Other Names: Zelnick Jennifer guest-editor.; Haviland Sarah guest-editor.; Morgan Jennifer Craft guest-editor.
• Is Part Of: New solutions. Volume 27:Number 4(2018)
• Page Start: 483
• Page End: 500
• Publication Date: 2018-02
• Subjects: care work -- elder care -- home-based care -- care policies -- precarity; Environmental health -- Periodicals; Environmental health -- Government policy -- United States -- Periodicals; Industrial hygiene -- Periodicals; Industrial hygiene -- Government policy -- United States -- Periodicals; 613.62
• DOI: 10.1177/1048291117740682
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1048-2911

Abstract

Based on policy analysis and individual interviews, the author analyzes the care workers' precarious situations in home-based elder care in Slovenia, a post-socialist, European Union country characterized by a rapidly aging population and delays in adapting a long-term care system to this new social risk. Employment and quasi-employment positions which coexist in home-based care can be sorted along two continuums: between public and market service; between formal and informal work. The author argues that working conditions in home-based care differ according to the position of the care worker on these two continuums, that is, being employed in public services, being self-employed, working in informal care markets, holding a status of family assistant, or being an informal family caregiver. Although the working conditions in public services are deteriorating, the analysis shows that precarity is more severe in market and informal care, while formalization and socialization of care bring about less precarious conditions.