The purpose of this case study is to gain a deepened understanding of how employees within the home care sector experience their work in general and their working conditions in particular based on which emotions they experience and how the employees handle these emotions. In order to answer the purpose and questions raised in the study, five semistructured interviews were held with home care workers. The study subjects were asked questions aiming to get them to share their knowledge and experiences regarding their working situation. The gathered empirical material was then analyzed with the help of emotional sociological theories and concepts as well as with parts of Goffman´s dramaturgical perspective. The results of the study show that employees working within the home care sector experience a wide range of emotions, where stress is one of the most frequently experienced emotions. Stress is experienced mainly due to the subjects experiencing their work as high demanding and that they lack control over their work. The results also showed that the employees use a mixed approach to their work. On the one hand, the study subjects experience that their identities are closely linked to their work and that close relationships are formed with the home care recipients. On the other hand, the subjects emphasize the importance of separating their individual personal from their professional role as caregivers in order to avoid emotional strains. In their relationship with the home care recipients, the employees must take in to account various emotional rules and the social exchange is characterized by an imbalance in the relationship between home care recipients and workers. Another key aspect of the home care employees working situation emerging from this study is a certain lack of the posterior region which appears during the subject’s lunch breaks. During the lunch break work related topics are discussed and the care giver might have to finish their lunch break early in order to assist a colleague or care recipient.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:kau-37147 |
| Date | January 2015 |
| Creators | Marklund, Malin |
| Publisher | Karlstads universitet, Fakulteten för humaniora och samhällsvetenskap (from 2013) |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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