Professionalism in Care Professions: Beyond Gender Segregation
Professionalism in Care Professions: Beyond Gender Segregation
Thursday, 10 July 2025: 15:00-16:45
Location: ASJE022 (Annex of the Faculty of Legal, Economic, and Social Sciences)
RC52 Sociology of Professional Groups (host committee) Language: English
The feminisation of work is now an established long-term process of advanced capitalist societies. Although women are currently more employed than ever, they still suffer from strong segregation into certain professions – considered suitable to their “caring” nature. Sectors like childcare, education, long-term care, social work and health are still heavily feminised due to a general cultural expectation that emotional labour is a women’s business. Nevertheless, care, which was once performed for free by women within families, has become expertise on its own, with processes of professionalisation that give more centrality to what was once considered a “women” job and, as such, degraded to a semi-profession. However, relatively few studies have investigated the impact of these changes on professionalism and its complex relationship with the gender segregation that characterises these professions.
This session welcomes empirical and theoretical contributions that focus on professionalism, professionalisation, and gender segregation in care professions. We invite studies that empirically analyse how practitioners claim/build their professionalism, as a single case study or in a comparative perspective, as well as theoretical reflections on the consequence of professionalisation on them. Studies that investigate the gendered nature of care professions (with quantitative or qualitative techniques) are particularly welcomed – especially if applying an intersectional analytical framework.
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Oral Presentations
Distributed Papers