(2017-2025) Changing Places: Unpaid Work in Public Spaces
Unpaid care work in residential homes is poorly understood. It is often assumed that moving to residential care relieves residents and families from the intense care work that occurs in many households. Meaningful involvement in certain tasks can promote residents’ independence and families often want to provide some support, but changing conditions in residential care may prevent residents from doing self-care and pressure families to do more care work than they are prepared for.
This project looks at the changes in self-care and family care work when moving from home to residential care, and seeks to identify conditions that support unpaid work that is rewarding and meaningful for families and residents.
Principal Investigator: Pat Armstrong
Co-applicants: Hugh Armstrong, Susan Braedley, Jacqueline Choiniere, Tamara Daly, Ruth Lowndes
Collaborators: Albert Banerjee, James Struthers, Petra Ulmanen, Frode F. Jacobsen, Marta Szebehely, Liz Lloyd
Additional Participants and students: Gudmund Ågotnes, Janna Klostermann, Christine Streeter
For more information on this project, view brochure here.
Published Article:
Ågotnes, G. et al (2021). From volunteer work to informal care by stealth: A ‘new voluntarism’ in social democratic health services for older adults, Aging & Society. doi:10.1017/S0144686X21001598
Published Books:
Armstrong, P. (ed.) Unpaid Work in Nursing Homes: Flexible Boundaries (Transforming Care Series, Policy Press). July 2023. Download e-book (open access) or purchase hard copy here.
York University article on the book can be accessed here.
Armstrong, P., & Braedley, S. (eds.) Care Homes in a Turbulent Era: Do they have a future? (In a Turbulent Era Series, Edward Elgar Publishing). August 2023. Download (open access) here.
Workshop on “Designing Long-term Care Homes for Women in all their Diversity”, March 2023:
Tool box from the workshop available to download here.