Workers in the Aging city: Eldercare labor markets in Vancouver and Shanghai

When:

December 01, 2016

Time:

03:00 PM - 04:30 PM

Category:

Lecture

Location:

Sedgewick C168

Details:

Join CAPI Associate, Dr Feng Xu, Political Science, as she takes us through her current research.

Workers in the Aging city: Eldercare labor markets in Vancouver and Shanghai

This project investigates urban labor markets for paid eldercare workers in Vancouver, Canada and Shanghai, China. Urbanization and population aging are among the most significant processes affecting the global North and South, and these ‘global cities’, with their important commercial and cultural linkages, are both experiencing demographic transitions. Population aging increases the need for eldercare beyond what is provided by families alone. Paid eldercare can vary in form, and includes homecare and long-term care (in care homes or hospitals); eldercare labor is therefore performed at diverse sites by both ‘high-skilled’ and ‘low-skilled’ workers. Changing family structures and shifting care and budgetary priorities are already resulting, in particular, in higher demand for paid, ‘low-skilled’ eldercare workers, who are often migrant and immigrant women. Yet their experiences are doubly invisible: they are frequently absent in analyses of eldercare policy (compared with care recipients and family carers), and in theories and policy on contemporary urbanization. The goal of our project is to address this invisibility. We compare the labor market experiences of ‘low-skilled’ paid eldercare workers in Canada and China to investigate two dynamics: 1) the relationship between policy, care markets in different care contexts, and workers’ experiences in those markets; and 2) how those experiences shape, and are shaped by, broader urban conditions.

 

Contact:

CAPI Communications
250-721-7020
commcapi@uvic.ca