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Dissertation Information for Jennifer Craft Morgan

NAME:
- Jennifer Craft Morgan

DEGREE:
- Ph.D.

DISCIPLINE:
- Sociology

SCHOOL:
- University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (USA) (2005)

ADVISORS:
- None

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
- None

MPACT Status: Incomplete - Inspected

Title: Just a job? A mixed method analysis of the work situation of direct care workers in long-term care settings

Abstract: This is a study that focuses attention on direct care workers in long term care. Direct care workers, for the purposes of this study, are a group of workers who are, in practice, referred to as "aides," "nurse aides," "nursing assistants," "personal care workers" and "home aides." These workers share the primary task of assisting older adults and persons with disabilities with activities of daily living (e.g., toileting, transferring, cooking, cleaning). Using the term 'Direct Care Worker' in this study is an effort to use one term to describe a class of positions in which carework is done in relation to care clients. Long term care, here, is limited to three main settings: nursing homes, adult care homes and home health/home care/hospice settings.

In this study of DCWs, I use mixed methods to triangulate several data sources including secondary data, survey data and focus group data in order to develop four main themes: (1) Direct care workers (DCWs) experience many "bad job" characteristics such as low pay, few benefits and heavy workloads; (2) Work values and identities play a part in the evaluation of jobs and decisions about jobs; (3) The sex/gender system, specifically the gendered division of labor across both the paid and unpaid sectors, largely contributes to the devaluation of direct care work; and (4) The medicalization and rationalization of healthcare and aging and the aging of the population are social trends that have a marked impact on the situation of direct care workers in long term care.

MPACT Scores for Jennifer Craft Morgan

A = 0
C = 1
A+C = 1
T = 0
G = 0
W = 0
TD = 0
TA = 0
calculated 2010-02-08 12:33:13

Advisors and Advisees Graph