What is work? Insights from the evolution of state foster care

Abstract

This article focuses on state foster care as a case study in the (re)configuration and negotiation of boundaries between work and non-work. Foster care can be seen as occupying a liminal position between the domains of 'work' and 'family', requiring management of the tensions presumed to exist between competing value systems. Through a review of research and policy developments, the relevant boundary issues are contextualized and explored, drawing examples from areas such as remuneration, taxation and benefits, employment status, work-life balance and the labour process. It is argued that while foster care shares the hybridity and ensuing tensions of care work more generally, the spatial and temporal integration of work and family and the high level of state regulation give them a particular intensity. In turn, this offers great potential for the study of work/non-work boundaries. Possible research avenues are set out.

Sociological Ambivalence: Relationships between Birth Parents and Foster Parents

“…This article is inspired by both the original sociological literature on ambivalence (first and foremost Merton and Barber, 1976), treating relationships between professionals and clients as a prototype of ambivalent relationships (see also Järvinen, 2016), and by family research proposing ambivalence as a general approach to complex family dynamics. To our knowledge, nobody has used this perspective in foster care research, although a few studies have explored the intersection of work and family within foster care, and the ambiguities associated with parenting in the context of statutory care systems (Kirton, 2013; Riggs, 2015; Schofield et al, 2013). Foster parents occupy a status at the crossroads of the professional and the private, having to live up to both professional role requirements (neutrality, expertise) and parental role requirements (love, compassion, particularism).…”

‘Nowhere else sells bliss like this’: Exploring the emotional labour of soldiers at war

“…Some research suggests emotional labour can be satisfying or may not even be a matter of performance at all: the feelings required in certain occupations are said to be those which motivate workers to do the job at all. The argument varies in large part depending on the occupation under scrutiny, including health and social care (Hebson, Rubery, & Grimshaw, ; Husso & Hirvonen, ; Kessler, Heron, & Dopson, ; Sloan, ), call centre work (Lloyd & Payne, ; Marsh & Musson, ), academia (Brouillette, ; Gregg, , ), railway work (Boyd, ), flight attending (Boyd, ; Curley & Royle, ), Santa performing (Hancock, ), retail (Ikeler, ) and foster parenting (Kirton, ).…”

Literature review: Foster carer attraction, recruitment, support and retention

“…This is now explicitly applied to residential care settings, and more recently to organisations providing out-of-home care, including foster care, and is in the early stages of application to systems or communities of care for children (Esaki et al, 2013;Leigh-Smith & Toth, 2014;Manley et al, 2014). Kirton (2011), drawing upon the broader literature in the sociology of work and of care work, discusses the boundaries between work and non-work in foster care. He notes the similarity with other forms of care work, in particular the 'shifting hybrid relationships between state and family' concomitant with the reduction in institutional care and the changing roles of women (p. 670).…”

“…This deep hybridity is exemplified by the requirements that foster carers provide high levels of emotional caring, and yet at the same time maintain some detachment. Kirton (2011) suggests that more work linking foster care work with care work literature in general may be useful.…”

“…Providing family-based care has some job-like aspects, but it is different. Generally there is lower remuneration, extended and unpredictable working hours, lack of boundaries between work and home (Kirton, 2011), high levels of emotional labour and ambiguity of role (Blythe, Halcomb, Wilkes, & Jackson, 2012;Thomson & McArthur, 2009). Recruitment and retention strategies are required, which take into account the complexity of life for carers providing home-based care to children (Randle, Miller, Dolnicar, & Ciarrochi, 2014).…”