Contested care: gendered renegotiations of care needs for the frail elderly population in Norway

Abstract

In Norway and elsewhere, care provision for frail elderly populations faces pressure from austerity measures and neoliberal governance. Public long-term care services are continually reconfigured through new policy measures (for example, ‘ageing in place’) and emphasis on ‘principles for prioritisation’. This study utilises ethnographic approaches to provide new insights into the prevailing contestation and devaluation of care work. Care work is predominantly carried out by women; thus, ongoing, fundamental reforms to the welfare system simultaneously represent a gendered battle. We identify tensions around how ‘needs’ for care are interpreted and argue that the female workforce is coerced to accept rationalities that undermine their professional and ethical understandings of ‘proper care work’, which, in turn, questions the perception of the ‘women-friendly’ Norwegian welfare state.