Window work: Screen-based eldercare and professional precarity at the welfare frontier

Grünenberg, Kristina; Hillersdal, Line; Winther, Jonas

doi:10.3384/ijal.1652-8670.3541

Cited by 2 publications

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“… Bergschöld (2018) uses the term ‘time labour’ to describe how care workers are changing the way they work in response to time pressure, cutting home visits as short as possible and ‘using technology to strategically produce and maintain quantitative representations of themselves as skilled workers’ (p.3). Therefore, rather than leading to a reduction of workload, research shows that the implementation welfare technology itself requires work ( Ertner, 2019 ; Grünenberg et al, 2022 ; Nickelsen, 2013 ; Tøndel and Seibt, 2019 ). Similarly, research shows that the introduction of welfare technology will likely lead to new work processes and new working conditions for care workers ( Frennert, 2019 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Good care and adverse effects: Exploring the use of social alarms in care for older people in Sweden

Lydahl

2023

Health (London)

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In Nordic countries, ‘welfare technology’ is a concept used increasingly by policymakers when discussing the promise of digitalisation in care for older people. In this paper, I draw on data from 14 qualitative ethnographic interviews with employees in municipal eldercare in Sweden, as well as observations carried out at a nursing home, to suggest the importance of studying how good care is enacted through welfare technology, whilst simultaneously attending to the adverse effects sometimes consequent from these practices. In this article, I explore what values are supported when doing care with welfare technology, and what values are neglected in this process. The theoretical starting point for this article takes its inspiration from recent discussions of care within Science and Technology Studies (STS). Employing a double vision of care, the article argues for the importance of understanding how good care is enacted with technology, while also attending to what these care practices exclude and neglect. Focusing on the use of social alarms, the article shows that when doing care with such technology, values such as independence, safety and some forms of togetherness and availability were enhanced; while other values such as other forms togetherness and availability, a stress-free working environment and functionality were neglected.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Good care and adverse effects: Exploring the use of social alarms in care for older people in Sweden

Lydahl

2023

Health (London)

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Values of welfare technologies: a qualitative study of how employees in Swedish care for older adults understand and justify the use of new technology

Lydahl,

Davidsson

2024

BMC Health Serv Res

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Background In Swedish care for older adults, the use of welfare technology − for example, medicine-dispensing robots and GPS alarms − stimulates ongoing evaluations and negotiations. National policy documents, as well as previous research, indicate that these technologies are expected to improve the quality and efficiency of care but also involve potential or experienced challenges in providing high-quality care and the conditions for care workers − often portrayed as a conflict between political and caring organizational values. More research is thus needed on how the use of welfare technology is justified at central and municipal government levels as well as within care-providing organizations. This article aims to identify how the introduction and use of welfare technology is justified by employees and in policy documents pertaining to welfare technology in Swedish care for older people. Methods Qualitative interview data involving 37 individuals were collected in municipalities in southern Sweden. The interviewees were managers, administrative staff, and licensed practical nurses working in home care services or special housing for older adults, offering care 24/7. Policy documents and agreements of significance for Swedish welfare technology policy were analysed. The analysis focused on values promoted as significant for the provision of care and related to the use of welfare technology. Justifications and values were analysed as belonging to different ‘worlds of worth’, as either shared or conflicting, and contextually situated. Results The documents reflect values regarding, for instance, efficiency, independence, good working conditions, optimised use of human resources, and time to tend to relationships. The employees justified the use of welfare technologies with reference to optimisation and efficiency, activation and participation, dignity and freedom, social relationships, and good working conditions. These values represent three different worlds of worth − the industrial world, the civic world, and the domestic world − and are situated in employees’ everyday work practices. Conclusions Values presented by employees and in policy documents are shared rather than conflicting. However, employees emphasise values associated with the domestic world, downplaying industrial values. We argue that politicians and civil servants should consider the situated judgements made by employees and develop more bottom-up strategies. This requires an acknowledgement of the existing values hierarchy, where values of optimisation and efficiency are held in high esteem but to accommodate higher values rather than as end goals.

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Window work: Screen-based eldercare and professional precarity at the welfare frontier

Cited by 2 publications

References 0 publications

Good care and adverse effects: Exploring the use of social alarms in care for older people in Sweden

Good care and adverse effects: Exploring the use of social alarms in care for older people in Sweden

Values of welfare technologies: a qualitative study of how employees in Swedish care for older adults understand and justify the use of new technology

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