A Cross-sectional Study of Sustainable Employment in Nordic Eldercare

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18291/njwls.128595

Keywords:

Health, Working Environment & Wellbeing, Employment, Wages, Unemployment & Rehabilitation, Work/Life Balance, Gender, Ethnicity, Age and Diversity

Abstract

This study addresses the retention challenges of Nordic eldercare by investigating how care workers’ work-time arrangements are associated with consideration to quit the job. Particular attention is paid to the mediating role of economic distress and work-life conflict. Based on a Nordic cross-sectional survey (Nordcare II), we investigate how different modes of shift work scheduling and involuntary part-time employment are directly and indirectly associated with consideration to quit the job. Parallel analyses from Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden reveal that work-time arrangements are indirectly associated with consideration to quit the job in all countries. Perceived work-life conflict increases with the number of different shifts included in a shift schedule. Danish care workers, who more often work fixed shifts, report the lowest level of work-life conflict. Involuntary part-time employment, which is most widespread in Norway, is directly associated with financial distress in all countries, but with work-life conflict in Norway only.

Author Biographies

Ida Drange, OsloMet – Oslo Metropolitan University

Research professor. E-mail: idadr@oslomet.no

Mia Vabø, OsloMet – Oslo Metropolitan University

Research professor

References

Amble, N & K. Ingstad (2017). Arbeidstid - en kjønnet kategori. [Work time – a gendered category] In K. Ingstad (Ed.) Turnus som fremmer heltidskultur. Kap. 5. s. 70-83, Oslo: Gyldendal Akademisk.

Abrahamsen, B., Holte, K. A., & Laine, M. (2012). Work-family interference: Nurses in Norway and Finland, Professions and Professionalism 2(1): 60-74.

Armstrong, P., Banerjee, A., Szebehely, M., Armstrong, H., & Daly, T. J. (2009). They Deserve Better: Comparing Canada and Scandinavia, Ottawa: CCPA.

Craig, L., & Powell, A. (2012). Dual-earner parents’ work-family time: the effects of atypical work patterns and non-parental childcare, Journal of Population Research: 29(3): 229-247. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12546-012-9086-5

Ede, L., & Rantakeisu, U. (2015). Managing organized insecurity: The consequences for care workers of deregulated working conditions in elderly care, Nordic Journal of Working Life Studies 5(2): 55-70. https://doi.org/10.19154/njwls.v5i2.4793

Epinion (2020). Arbejdstid blandt social- og sundhedspersonalet på det kommunale ældreområde. [Worktime among social- and health personnel in municipal eldercare] Social- og Indenrigsministeriets Benchmarkingenhed.

Hernes, H. M. (1987). Women and the welfare state: the transition from private to public dependence. Women and the state: the shifting boundaries of public and private, 72-92, Oslo: Norwegian University Press

Ilsøe, A. (2016). From living wage to living hours – the Nordic version of the working poor, Labour & Industry 26(1): 40-57. https://doi.org/10.1080/10301763.2016.1152534

Ingstad, K. (2017). Arbeidstid og turnus - en historisk utvikling. [Work time and shift work – a historical development] In K. Ingstad (Ed.), Turnus som fremmer heltidskultur (Vol. 1, pp. 26-38), Oslo: Gyldendal akademisk.

Ingstad, K., & Kvande, E. (2011). Arbeid i sykehjem–for belastende for heltid? [Work in eldercare - to demanding for full-time work?] Søkelys på arbeidslivet, 28(01-02), 42-55.

Jensen, R. S. (2000). Utvikling i kvinners deltidsarbeid i Norden [Development in women’s part-time work in the Nordic countries]. Søkelys på arbeidsmarkedet, 17(2).

Jonsson, I. (2011). Work hours and gender equality: Examples from care work in the Swedish public sector, Gender, Work & Organization 18(5): 508-527. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0432.2011.00563.x

Kauppinen‐Toropainen, K., Kandolin, I. and Haavio‐Mannila, E. (1988), Sex segregation of work in Finland and the quality of women's work, J Organiz Behav 9: 15-27. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.4030090103

Karhula K, Puttonen S, Ropponen A, et al. (2017). Objective working hour characteristics and work-life conflict among hospital employees in the Finnish public sector study, Chronobiol Int 34(7):876-885. https://doi.org/10.1080/07420528.2017.1329206

Kavli, H. C., Nicolaisen, H., & Trygstad, S. C. (2019). Workplace responses to national regulations to reduce involuntary part-time. In H. Nicolaisen, H. C. Kavli, & R. S. Jensen (Eds.), Dualisation of part-time work (pp. 85-108), Bristol: Policy Press.

Landén, A., S. (2017) Kvalitativ uppföljning av ’Rätt till heltid-deltid en möjlighet’, ur ett medarbetarperspektiv. [A qualitative follow-up of the program ‘the right to full-time –part-time an opportunity’ from an employee-perspective] Avdelningen för samhällsvetenskap. Enheten för sociologi och genusvetenskap, Östersund.

Larsen, T., A. Ilsøe and J. Felbo-Kolding (2019). Part-time work in Danish private services: a (mis)match between wage flexibility and living hours. In H. Nicolaisen, H. C. Kavli, & R. S. Jensen (Eds.), Dualisation of part-time work (pp. 133-158), Bristol: Policy Press.

Mehmetoglu, M. (2018). medsem: a Stata package for statistical mediation analysis, International Journal of Computational Economics and Econometrics 8(1): 63-78. https://doi.org/10.1504/IJCEE.2018.10007883

Nabe-Nielsen, K., Garde, A., Jensen, J.N., Borg, V., Høgh, A., 2007. Arbejdstider i

ældreplejen (Work hours in the eldercare). The National Research Centre for

the Working Environment, Copenhagen.

Nabe-Nielsen, K., Tüchsen, F., Christensen, K. B., Garde, A. H., & Diderichsen, F. (2009). Differences between day and nonday workers in exposure to physical and psychosocial work factors in the Danish eldercare sector, Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment & Health: 48-55. https://doi.org/10.5271/sjweh.1307

Nabe-Nielsen, K., G. Kecklund, M. Ingre, J. Skotte, F. Diderichsen & A.H. Garde (2010). The importance of individual preferences when evaluating the associations between

work hours and indicators of health and well-being, Applied Ergonomics 41 (2010): 779–786. doi:10.1016/j.apergo.2010.01.004

Nergaard, K., Barth E., H. Dale-Olsen (2015). Lavere organisasjonsgrad. Et spørsmål om nykommere? [Lower union denisty. A question of newcomers?] Søkelys på arbeidslivet 32(1-2): 91-110.

Nordic Council of Ministers (2014). Recruitment and Retention of Health Care Professionals in the Nordic Countries. A Cross-national Analysis, TemaNord 2014:554.

http://dx.doi.org/10.6027/TN2014-554

OECD (2020), Who Cares? Attracting and Retaining Care Workers for the Elderly, OECD Health Policy Studies, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/92c0ef68-en

Peters, V., Engels, J. A., de Rijk, A. E., & Nijhuis, F. J. (2015). Sustainable employability in shiftwork: related to types of work schedule rather than age, International Archives of Occupational and Environmental Health 88(7), 881-893. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00420-014-1015-9

Rasmussen, B., & Kjevik-Wycherley, I. (2019). Eldreomsorgens bemanningskrise. Budsjett eller personalpolitikk? [Crisis in the Manning of Nursing Homes. Manpower – or Budget Policy?]Tidsskrift for velferdsforskning 22(4): 313-324. https://doi.org/10.18261/issn.2464-3076-2019-04-04

Vabø, M., Drange, I. & N. Amble (2019). Den vanskelige deltidsknuten – en særnorsk utfordring som rammer unge helsefagarbeidere. [The difficult part-time knot – a Norwegian problem affecting young care workers ]. Fagbladet samfunn og økonomi (1-2): 6-22

Van Rie T, Marx I, Horemans J. Ghent revisited: Unemployment insurance and union membership in Belgium and the Nordic countries, European Journal of Industrial Relations 17(2):125-139. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959680111400895

Szebehely, M., Stranz, A. & Strandell R. (2017). Vem ska arbeta i framtidens äldreomsorg?

[Who will be working in tomorrows’ eldercare?]Working Paper/Department of Social Work, 2017:1, Stockholm: University of Stockholm.

Zhao, X., Lynch Jr, J. G., & Chen, Q. (2010). Reconsidering Baron and Kenny: Myths and truths

about mediation analysis, Journal of Consumer Research 37(2), 197-206. https://doi.org/10.1086/651257

Downloads

Published

2021-11-05

How to Cite

Drange, I., & Vabø, M. (2021). A Cross-sectional Study of Sustainable Employment in Nordic Eldercare. Nordic Journal of Working Life Studies, 11(S7). https://doi.org/10.18291/njwls.128595