Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T12:27:51.842Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

An exploratory qualitative study on relationships between older people and home care workers in South Korea: the view from family carers and service providers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2013

YONGHO CHON
YONGHO CHON*
Affiliation:
Department of Elderly Welfare, Namseoul University, Cheonan, South Korea.
*
Address for correspondence: Yongho Chon, Department of Elderly Welfare, Namseoul University, Cheonan, South Korea. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Although the proportion of older people using home care services has significantly increased in East Asian countries, the issue of the relationships between older people and home care workers in the East Asian context has received scant attention from scholars. This exploratory qualitative study aims to explore these relationships under the new Korean long-term care insurance system. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with 22 family carers and private-sector home care service providers (home care workers and provider managers). The findings show that while the majority of family carers interviewed reported that their relationships were good, the majority of service providers' responses were more negative. Service providers stated that they experienced a number of difficulties that affected their relationships with older clients, including excessive demands or sexual harassment by the older people in their care, exposure to unsafe working environments, and poor treatment in terms of pay and conditions. The findings suggest that stable and good relationships between home care workers and their clients have not been secured in Korea's long-term care system.

Keywords

home care servicehome care workerrelationshiplong-term careKorea
Type
Articles
Information
Ageing & Society , Volume 35 , Issue 3 , March 2015 , pp. 629 - 652
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aronson, J. and Neysmith, S. M. 1996. ‘You're not just in there to do the work’: depersonalizing policies and the exploitation of homecare workers’ labor. Gender and Society, 10, 1, 59–77.Google Scholar
Ayalon, L. 2009. Family and family-like interactions in households with round-the-clock paid foreign carers in Israel. Ageing & Society, 29, 5, 671–86.Google Scholar
Barer, B. 1992. The relationship between homebound older people and their home care workers. Journal of Gerontological Social Work, 19, 1, 129–47.Google Scholar
Bryman, A. 2004. Social Research Methods. Oxford University Press, Oxford.Google Scholar
Campbell, J. C., Ikegami, N. and Gibson, M. J. 2010. Lessons from public long-term care insurance in Germany and Japan. Health Affairs, 29, 1, 87–95.Google Scholar
Chon, Y. 2012. Long-term care reform in Korea: lessons from the introduction of Asia's second long-term care insurance system. Asia Pacific Journal of Social Work and Development, 22, 4, 219–27.Google Scholar
Chon, Y. 2013 a. A qualitative exploratory study on the service delivery system for the new long-term care insurance system in Korea. Journal of Social Service Research, 39, 2, 188–203.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chon, Y. 2013 b. The development of Korea's new long-term care service infrastructure and its results: focusing on the market-friendly policy used for expansion of the numbers of service providers and personal care workers. Journal of Gerontological Social Work, 56, 3, 255–75.Google Scholar
Cook, S. and Dong, X. 2011. Harsh choices: Chinese women's paid work and unpaid care responsibilities under economic reform. Development and Change, 42, 4, 947–65.Google Scholar
Daly, M. 2002. Care as a good for social policy. Journal of Social Policy, 31, 2, 251–70.Google Scholar
Doyle, T. and Timonen, V. 2009. The different faces of care work: understanding the experiences of the multi-cultural care workforce. Ageing & Society, 29, 3, 337–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eustis, N. and Fischer, L. 1991. Relationships between homecare clients and their workers: implications for quality of care. The Gerontologist, 31, 4, 447–56.Google Scholar
Flick, U. 2006. An Introduction to Qualitative Research. London, Sage.Google Scholar
Fujiwara, K., Tsukishima, E., Tsutsumi, A., Kawakami, N., and Kishi, R. 2003. Interpersonal conflict, social support, and burnout among home care workers in Japan. Journal of Occupational Health, 45, 5, 313–20.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Graham, J. E. and Bassett, R. 2006. Reciprocal relations: the recognition and co-construction of caring with Alzheimer's disease. Journal of Ageing Studies, 20, 4, 335–49.Google Scholar
Hale, B. 2006. The meaning of home as it becomes a place for care: the emergence of a new life stage for frail older people? A study in the dynamics of home care for older people. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand.Google Scholar
Hale, B., Barrett, P. and Gauld, R. 2010. The Age of Supported Independence: Voices of In-home Care. Springer, London.Google Scholar
Hong, G. S. and Kim, H. 2008. Family carer burden by relationship to care recipient with dementia in Korea. Geriatric Nursing, 29, 4, 267–74.Google Scholar
Huang, S., Thang, L. L. and Toyota, M. 2012. Transnational mobilities for care: rethinking the dynamics of care in Asia. Global Networks, 12, 2, 129–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iecovich, E. 2011. What makes migrant live-in home care workers in elder care be satisfied with their job? The Gerontologist, 51, 5, 617–29.Google Scholar
Ikegami, N. 2007. Rationale, design and sustainability of long-term care insurance in Japan – in retrospect. Social Policy & Society, 6, 3, 423–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Karner, T. 1998. Professional caring: homecare workers as fictive kin. Journal of Ageing Studies, 12, 1, 69–82.Google Scholar
Kim, H. K. 2004. A study on family carers’ preferences for utilization of community based welfare and health-care services. Korean Journal of Social Welfare, 56, 4, 123–47.Google Scholar
Kim, J. H. 2008. Proposals for the improvement of service quality of long-term care insurance in Korea: focusing on the improvement of care workers in terms of the development of workforce and professionality. Far East Social Welfare, 4, 1, 49–83.Google Scholar
Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs 2012. Research on the Actual Condition of Older People in 2011. Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs, Seoul.Google Scholar
Mason, J. 2002. Qualitative Researching. London, Sage.Google Scholar
Ministry of Health and Welfare (MHW) 2007 a. Guidelines for the Third Pilot Project for Long-term Care Insurance. MHW, Seoul.Google Scholar
Ministry of Health and Welfare (MHW) 2007 b. The Major Contents of Long-term Care Insurance. MHW, Seoul.Google Scholar
Nadash, P. and Shih, Y. C. 2013. Introducing social insurance for long-term care in Taiwan: key issues. International Journal of Social Welfare, 22, 1, 69–79.Google Scholar
National Health Insurance Corporation (NHIC) 2008. The Results of Pilot Projects in Long-term Care Insurance in 2008: A Focus on the Third Pilot Projects. NHIC, Seoul.Google Scholar
National Health Insurance Corporation (NHIC) 2011. Statistics for Long-term Care Insurance in the First Half of 2011. NHIC, Seoul.Google Scholar
Neuman, L. 2006. Social Research Methods: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches. Allyn and Bacon, London.Google Scholar
Nishikawa, M. 2011. (Re)defining care workers as knowledge workers. Gender, Work and Organization, 18, 1, 113–36.Google Scholar
Noy, C. 2008. Sampling knowledge: the hermeneutics of snowball sampling in qualitative research. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 11, 4, 327–44.Google Scholar
Patton, M. Q. 2002. Qualitative Research and Evaluation Methods. Sage, Thousand Oaks, California.Google Scholar
Peng, I. 2010. The expansion of social care and reform: Implications for care workers in the Republic of Korea. International Labour Review, 149, 4, 461–76.Google Scholar
Piercy, K. 2001. We couldn't do without them: the value of close relationships between older adults and their nonfamily carers. Intimacy and Ageing, 25, 2, 41–7.Google Scholar
Piercy, K. and Dunkely, G. 2004. What quality paid home care means to family carers. Journal of Applied Gerontology, 23, 3, 175–92.Google Scholar
Porat, I. and Iecovich, E. 2010. Relationships between elderly care recipients and their migrant live-in home care workers in Israel. Home Health Care Services Quarterly, 29, 1, 1–21.Google Scholar
Rai, G. S. 2010. Burnout among long-term care staff. Administration in Social Work, 34, 3, 225–40.Google Scholar
Razavi, S. and Staab, S. 2010. Underpaid and overworked: a cross-national perspective on care workers. International Labour Review, 149, 4, 407–22.Google Scholar
Research Institute for Advancement of Living Standards (RIALS) 1997. A Study on Welfare and Home Care Services for the Elderly. RIALS, Tokyo.Google Scholar
Rummery, K. and Fine, M. 2012. Care: a critical review of theory, policy and practice. Social Policy and Administration, 46, 3, 321–43.Google Scholar
Seo, D., Kim, W., Moon, S., Lee, Y. and Lim, J. 2012. Medium and Long-term Prediction of Supply and Demand of Care Workers and Improvements for It. National Health Insurance Corporation, Seoul.Google Scholar
Sims-Gould, J. and Martin-Matthews, A. 2010. We share the care: family carers’ experiences of their older relative receiving home support services. Health and Social Care in the Community, 18, 4, 415–23.Google Scholar
Smith, C. S. and Hung, L. 2012. The influence of eastern philosophy on elder care by Chinese Americans: attitudes toward long-term care. Journal of Transcultural Nursing, 23, 1, 100–5.Google Scholar
Sung, S. 2003. Women reconciling paid and unpaid work in a Confucian welfare state: the case of South Korea. Social Policy & Administration, 37, 4, 342–60.Google Scholar
Sunwoo, D. 2004. Long-term care policy for functionally dependent older people in the Republic of Korea. International Social Security, 57, 2, 47–62.Google Scholar
Ungerson, C. 2005. Care, work and feeling. The Sociological Review, 53, s2, 188–203.Google Scholar
Walsh, K. and Shutes, I. 2013. Care relationships, quality of care and migrant workers caring for older people. Ageing & Society, 33, 3, 393–420.Google Scholar
Yeoh, B. S. A. and Huang, S. 2010. Foreign domestic workers and home-based care for elders in Singapore. Journal of Ageing and Social Policy, 22, 1, 69–88.Google Scholar
Zimmer, Z. and Chen, F. F. 2012. Social support and change in depression among older adults in Taiwan. Journal of Applied Gerontology, 31, 6, 764–82.Google Scholar