Delivering Care to Homes - the Public and the Private Realms and Gender Issues in Home Care

• Main Authors: Chiu,Yi Chun, 邱憶群
• Other Authors: Hsu, Ching-Wen
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2016
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/teqp74

碩士 === 國立清華大學 === 人類學研究所 === 104 === Delivering Care to Homes - the Public and the Private Realms and Gender Issues in Home Care Abstract Home care is part of Taiwan's social welfare services. It is currently undertaken by contracted private agencies who hire caregivers to deliver the service to individual household. Field research was conducted to understand the experiences of the frontline caregivers and two key questions were raised: 1) how do these caregivers, on behalf of the public sector, deliver care to private homes? 2) is the training environment and positioning of home caregivers genderized, and if they are, how does this influence their workplace and nature of their work? This research approaches the intricate interactions between the public and the private realms at the location the service is rendered as well as how gender influences the training and practice of home care from three aspects: who the caregivers are, how home care is provided, and what home care is. Findings suggest that 1) the work and role of home caregivers are genderized, 2) the positioning of home care appears to be more feminine than other types of care, 3) home caregivers are typically associated with unskilled foreign workers and this contributes to the marginalization of home care, 4) the fact that the service is delivered to private homes blurs the boundaries between the public and the private realms and requires caregivers to play multiple roles, and that 5) the skills and level of professionalization required in providing home care are underestimated due to the above mentioned indistinction. Three suggestions were derived from the findings: 1) the orientation training and career planning should be redesigned to complement each other to provide a more precise positioning of home care; 2) labor rights of the caregivers should be improved in tangible ways, such as offering monthly salary, formulating policies to ensure sources of income when the usurers are hospitalized; and 3) measures should be taken to build a more friendly work environment for the caregivers, and these measures include building an alliance or discussion platform, urging the agencies to provide more support and connection, and issuing pamphlets and holding forums to help home care users develop a deeper understanding of the roles and rights of the caregivers.