{"id":2700,"date":"2014-07-14T08:39:45","date_gmt":"2014-07-14T07:39:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.longkeshinsideout.co.uk\/?p=2700"},"modified":"2014-07-14T08:41:25","modified_gmt":"2014-07-14T07:41:25","slug":"a-critique-of-the-caring-profession-in-northern-ireland-william-ennis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.longkeshinsideout.co.uk\/?p=2700","title":{"rendered":"A Critique of the Caring Profession in Northern Ireland: William Ennis"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following essay was part of an assignment I submitted toward my Open University studies.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

I believe the provision of care for those in society, old and young alike, as well as the treatment of those who provide that care, are issues in which Loyalist communities, along with others, have a huge stake.\u00a0 <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Why are low wages a feature of the caring profession, and what are the implications of low wages for the provision of care in a modern society?<\/strong><\/p>\n

To undertake this essay I shall create two sub-headings to deal with the two main questions within the title.\u00a0 In both sub-headings of this essay I have identified more avenues for potential explanation than can be explored given the mandatory word limit.\u00a0 The few selected are the ones I consider most prominent.<\/p>\n

Why are low wages a feature of the caring profession?<\/em><\/p>\n

Females have consistently been over-represented in the caring profession.\u00a0 It is also the case that females are paid lower wages than men.\u00a0 With the above two factors considered it is clear that the combined effect will be a poor wages in the caring profession.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe main differences are a gender wage differential of about 20% in favour of male employees, a wage premium of around 30% for full time over part time workers, and a wide variation in wage rates between employees according to their level of qualifications (an analysis of data by the UK Labour force survey, Slater, 2011).\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

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It has been argued that the nature of the work undertaken by the caring profession is that which is more natural to women than men.<\/p>\n

\u201cThus a study of UK nurses claimed that many of their skills derived \u2018not from the qualities of being a good nurse but from the qualities of being a woman\u2019 but omitted to consider what they should be paid for these skills (O’Brien, 1994, cited in DD309 by the Open University).\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

This is compounded by the fact that many care workers lack formal qualifications which many would argue justify improved remuneration.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is one of the lowest paid sectors in the economy, reliant on an overwhelmingly female workforce, many of whom lack formal qualifications…\u00a0 (Pennycock, 2013).\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The reasons suggested as to why men are remunerated greater than women have included their less being less likely to have attended university, especially in poorer countries and their role in the family unit as mothers with the family gaining greater utility through the introduction of children to the household than through having the woman undertaking paid employment.\u00a0 This is arguably a root cause of the aforementioned association of hands-on caring with being a woman.<\/p>\n

The caring profession is labour intensive as opposed to capital intensive.<\/p>\n

This means as companies suffer increased costs these costs cannot be met by deploying a different technique which utilises capital assets to a greater extent, or replace workers with technology, and so a company providing care services to a client or recipient must utilise its labour assets extremely cost effectively.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe answer lies in care provision being a hands-on personal service:\u00a0 it involves providing physical help while relating for the person being cared for.\u00a0 This can not be done at a distance, and provides little scope for raising productivity by technological change because the number of people for whom one carer can care simultaneously is limited.\u201d (Himmelweit, 2011).<\/em><\/p>\n

In a state such as the United Kingdom, where care is a funded largely by a socialised budget, namely the NHS, increased costs could not be off-set by raising prices as would be the case in the for-profit private sector.\u00a0 The care delivered at regional level is managed by delegation to local government which is therefore responsible for balancing its own budgets.\u00a0 As costs must be restricted in aid of balancing the budgets, raising or sustaining the wages of workers in the caring profession, it could be argued, suffers considerably as ways and means are found to hold down those wages, which are the most significant factor.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe national minimum wage (NMW) is a right, not a privilege.\u00a0 And yet estimats suggest that between 160,000 and 220,000 direct care workers are likely to be being paid less than the legal minimum.\u00a0 This is nothing less than a national scandal…\u201d (Pennycock, 2013).<\/em><\/p>\n

When budgetary constraints are to be factored in a sector as labour intensive as the care profession, workers remuneration is the most likely, if not the obvious cut.<\/p>\n

Some would argue the case for a system of healthcare finance in place in other countries whereby the organisations providing care are free to set their own prices with government involvement being limited to a set financial contribution to the recipient of the care, thus creating greater marketisation of the care profession.\u00a0 Those who champion this theory would argue that the producer surplus which may become prominent would facilitate fairer remuneration of care workers and\/or greater consumer welfare.\u00a0 Those opposed to such an idea would argue that the opportunity for profitability would, in practice, do nothing more than create an incentive to withhold such a pay-rise.<\/p>\n

Care workers are less likely to avail of collective bargaining.<\/p>\n

Collective bargaining, such as that of the trade\u2019s union movement would improve the bargaining position of workers and provide a forum of communication between employers and employees.\u00a0 The workers of the care profession don\u2019t do this to the extent of others and this could be one of the reasons for their poor remuneration.\u00a0 Suggested reasons for this include one theory that due to the geographically scattered nature of the case load of a care worker everyday communication and liason with other care workers is not commonplace.\u00a0 In addition to that, immigrant labour is disproportionately over-represented in the profession adding isolation and language barriers to the reasons collective bargaining is not happening to the degree it might.<\/p>\n

\u201c…\u00a0 One that has a limited bargaining power and a particularly weak collective voice.\u00a0 This is exacerbated by the frequent physical separation from colleagues that is a distinct feature of the irregular and fragmented service they provide.\u00a0 Union membership among domiciliary care workers and the support workers stands at 24 per cent, far lower than that of care managers (58 per cent) and qualified social workers (88 per cent), according to the social care workforce research unit at King\u2019s college London. (Pennycock, 2013)<\/em><\/p>\n

The mean gross hourly earnings in the UK (\u00a3) in 2005 for an employee who has entered into an agreement of collective bargaining was 11.72 compared with 10.65 which is the mean gross hourly wage of the employee who has not entered into an agreement of collective bargaining (Forth., 2006, as citedin DD309 by the Open University).<\/p>\n

Conclusions to part 1 of this essay<\/p>\n