A Wages and Wellness Penalty: A Study of Women Care Workers in Canada
Date
2021-09
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Abstract
This thesis establishes a nationally representative sociodemographic profile of women in lowstatus care positions in long-term care (LTC) facilities across Canada, as well as assessing whether or not they experience a wages and wellness disadvantage, compared to non-care worker women. The thesis applies Paula England’s Devaluation Framework which suggests that women in positions of care work are typically rewarded less than comparable workers due to societal and cultural biases towards feminized fields of employment. Using 2016 Canadian Census micro-data accessed at the Prairie Regional Statistics Canada Research Data Centre, low-status care work is operationalized using occupation codes for Licensed Practical Nurses or Nurse’s Aides, Orderlies and Patient Service Associates alongside the industry code for Nursing and Residential Care Facilities. Using descriptive data analysis, the author identifies that low-status care work in LTC is overwhelmingly comprised of women, racialized individuals and foreign-born people in Canada. As well, using Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) Regression and Logistic Regression methods the author finds that women in low-status care occupations experience a wage penalty in comparison to all other employed women in Canada, with women of colour experiencing a double disadvantage in terms of wages. Lastly, this thesis demonstrates that low-status women care workers also experience a disadvantage in terms of both self-rated physical and mental health in comparison to women in other occupations. Several suggestions for future research and policy implications are explored based on these research findings such as fair remuneration, employment benefits, appropriate staffing levels, and unionization for care workers in LTC.
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Keywords
Care Work, Health, Gender, Migration, Well-being
Citation
Baay, C. (2021). A wages and wellness penalty: a study of women care workers in Canada (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.