XIX ISA World Congress of Sociology (July 15-21, 2018)

216

Care and Social Justice: Global Innovations in Home and Long-Term Care

RC11 Sociology of Aging (host committee)

Language: English

Home and long-term care systems supporting older and disabled people throughout the world are under strain. Representing a complex intersection of social and health policy, this sector faces a multitude of issues including challenges in worker recruitment, training and retention; inconsistency of service delivery; and surplus demand linked to aging demographics and increasing acuity of clients. Further, critical scholarship illuminates how care infrastructure can reinforce inequalities related to gender, racialization, ability, age, and immigration status, among others. These pressures fuel demand for novel approaches to supporting older people and people with disabilities in holistic, person-centred ways. Of note, some innovations in home and long-term care are informed by disability, feminist, labour and other critical scholarship. Disability scholars, for example, highlight the empowering potential of self-managed or consumer-directed home care programs, linking these programs to a vibrant history of independent living activism and disability rights. Feminist ethicists posit care policies can be a litmus test of societal progress by revealing the ways in which gendered labour and those in need are valued, or not, in a particular context. Labour scholars draw attention to how working conditions for care workers are connected to quality of life for the people they support, advocating for new models of collective organizing that can reflect the complexity of this sector. This session aims to spotlight global innovations in home and long-term care policy and practice, privileging submissions that demonstrate the potential to achieve both formal policy aims and transformative social justice through the organization of care.