Review Article: Healthy ageing in rural Australia: Issues and challenges

Davis, Sandra; Bartlett, Helen

doi:10.1111/j.1741-6612.2008.00296.x

Cited by 109 publications

(91 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…In a competitive market, the industry's reliance on workers' intrinsic motivations to pursue community-based aged care work is, at best, risky. A consistent finding over time is that the subjective rewards that motivate care workers, such as intimacy, empathy and responsibility, provide a ready source of exploitation 4,9,27 . Notwithstanding the opportunities for exploitation, the intrinsic rewards associated with care work are significant sources of job satisfaction.…”

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confidence: 79%

“…One well-documented barrier to recruitment across the aged care sector as a whole is its negative image as an exploitative industry characterised by 'dead-end' jobs and menial work 4 . A substantial body of work depicts aged care work as hidden and gendered, and workers as poorly remunerated [4][5][6][7][8][9] .…”

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confidence: 99%

“…A substantial body of work depicts aged care work as hidden and gendered, and workers as poorly remunerated [4][5][6][7][8][9] . The 'lot' of workers is linked to the often casual and insecure terms of employment and industrial powerlessness 5 .…”

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confidence: 99%

“…The managers' strategies for retaining seasoned and flagging employees reflect the industry's longstanding reliance on older workers, many of whom entered the workforce with limited formal qualifications and few employment opportunities 4 . Over many decades, the tacit agreement between these women and the industry as a whole has produced an impression of natural fit between job, role and encumbent that is now no longer functional.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Challenges to the provision of community aged care services across rural Australia: perceptions of service managers

Savy¹,

Warburton²,

Hodgkin³

2017

Rural Remote Health

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A B S T R A C TIntroduction: The Australian community aged care sector is facing a growing workforce crisis, particularly in rural and regional areas. Its predominantly female workforce is ageing, and recruiting younger, skilled workers is proving difficult. The service sector, too, is proving highly complex and diverse as a result of contemporary aged care service reforms as well as ongoing difficulties in providing services to the growing numbers of older people living in Australia's rural areas. Despite these multiple challenges, there is a gap in research that explores how rural aged care services manage their day-to-day requirements for skilled workers across the diverse service sector. To address this gap, this article reports on the experiences and perceptions of a small sample of service managers whose organisations represent this diversity, and who are accountable for care provision in regional and rural locations. In such areas, recruitment and skill needs are contoured by disproportionate aged populations, distance and reduced service availability. Methods: Eleven service managers were interviewed as part of a larger project that examined the skill and training needs of community aged care workers within the Riverina, a rural region in New South Wales. Qualitative data drawn from semi-structured interviews were thematically analysed to identify the managers' individual needs for workers and skills in the context of location, service parameters and availability of other health and community services. Results: Thematic analysis of the interview data elicited three themes: services, roles and skill deployment; older workers and gendered roles; and barriers to recruitment. The findings illustrate the complexities that characterise the community aged care sector as a whole and the impact of these on individual services located in regional and rural parts of Australia. The participants © P Savy, J Warburton, S Hodgkin, 2017. A Licence to publish this material has been given to James Cook University, http://www.jcu.edu.au 2 reported diverse needs for worker skills in keeping with the particular level of service they provide. Significantly, their varying perceptions and practices reflect their preference for older, female workers; their reluctance to take on younger workers is negatively skewed by a lack of capacity to compete for, recruit and retain such workers and to offer incentives in the form of enhanced roles and career development. Conclusions: The findings highlight the conceptual ambiguities inherent in definitions of community aged care work as broadly skilled and uniformly sought across the sector. On the one hand, demands for more and better trained workers to meet growing client complexity locate care work as skilled. On the other, managers of narrowly defined service activities may rely on a diminishing workforce whose skills they downplay in gendered and lay terms. This contradiction corresponds with long-held conclusions about the gendered, exploitative reputation of care work, a characterisa...

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confidence: 79%

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confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Challenges to the provision of community aged care services across rural Australia: perceptions of service managers

Savy¹,

Warburton²,

Hodgkin³

2017

Rural Remote Health

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In an ageing world, concern has arisen about the implications of structurally older populations on labour security, demand for social assistance and health care (Aysan and Beaujot, 2009;Bartlett and Phillips, 1997;Bloom et al, 2007;Davis and Bartlett, 2008;Palacios, 2002). Global trends indicate parts of Europe, North America, North Eastern Asia and the AustraliaeNew Zealand region will experience the most severe ageing in coming decades (Kinsella and He, 2009).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%