Is it time for job quality? Conceptualising temporal arrangements in new models of homecare

Abstract

Time is a key organising principle in the formal provision of care to older people in their own homes. It is used when delivering homecare services, calculating fees and care staff’s pay entitlement. Research in the UK highlights how the predominant service model of compartmentalising care into pre‐defined tasks, delivered in strictly scheduled time‐based units, offers poor quality jobs, characterised by low pay, insecure and tightly controlled work. Our case study research of ‘new models’ of homecare however, found variation in the way time measures were operationalised. Drawing from Thompson’s (1967, Past & Present, 38, 56–97) conceptualisation of clock‐time (where care work is controlled by external measures of time) and nature’s time (where care work is performed through internal notions of time) as a lens, we examine how service delivery models and job quality are temporally connected through homecare work. Through our analysis, we exemplify how the use of strict time‐based measures can limit care work according to nature’s time. We also consider the potential of ambitemporality—the accommodation of clock and nature’s time—in organising service delivery as a means of enriching job quality. Finally, we discuss the pertinent implications of conceiving job quality in homecare work through a temporal lens.