Caring for a living: should women care less?
Women are most definitely the mainstay of social care work sector. In fact, they make up nearly 90% of all members, according to a Fawcett Society research paper. The report, aptly titled Undervalued work, underpaid women – women’s employment in care homes, uncovers serious inequality, including poor pay. The lack of status and value attached to the majority of jobs in the independent care homes sector was a key finding. One care worker stated, ‘Although work in care homes is very hard, the value attached is very low’. So why are women so highly represented in care work, and should they care less?
Pay and conditions come high up on the list of problem areas. Average pay rates for care assistants and support staff were found to be below £4.00 an hour (£3.73, to be precise). Three quarters of those earning less than £4.00 per hour are women, many working part time.
Where are the men?
Wendy Blaylock, 37, is a care worker with a local authority in London. She has been in the field since she was 18 years old, and has noticed the overwhelming presence of women in care work. ‘There are definitely a lot more women in this sector. I used to work in local government and it was the same. Up until now, I’ve mainly worked in mental health. I especially notice the imbalance when I go on courses. For example, on a social work course I attended in 1989, there were only 4 men out of a total of 36 people on the course. Last year I took a drama and movement therapy course and only one man attended out of 17 people.’
Blaylock has a view on why care work attracts more women: ‘Caring, undoubtedly due to its name, is viewed as a nurturing field. Therefore, it's not considered macho in any way. And this deters men. The traditional view is to look at caring as a job, in which you might have to bath people and clean up after them. The irony is that care work often involves incredibly challenging situations which carry the threat of violence,’ says Blaylock. ‘Fundamentally, I think that the overall shortage of permanent care workers, both male and female, is due to agencies paying higher wages for short-term contract work than a local authority would,’ she says.
Next page: the pros and cons for women care workers
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