Mother, daughter, patient, nurse: women's emotion work in aged care

This paper examines emotion work within the predominantly female environment of aged-care nursing, identifying phenomena which must be accounted for in a theory of emotional labour. These phenomena include the blurring of public and private in women's experiences and maternal models of care. Initial findings demonstrate the high levels of stress experienced by staff, related to emotional labour and to conflicts around the erosion of care standards. Sixteen women, from rural Australia, participated in the first stage of the research. The oldest was in her sixties, the youngest in her thirties. Length of aged-care experience ranged from 2 to 33 years. Although most of the women expected to still be in aged care in 5 years' time, they were negative in their attitudes to personal ageing, suggesting an ambivalence in their feelings about working in aged care. Three women nurses are the particular focus of this paper. Their narratives illustrate the intersection of private and public caring in nurses' lives and the implications of this for emotional labour. Phenomena such as dual caring, conflicts in insider-outsider roles, and transference are revealed in their narratives. We argue that the welfare of the recipient of gerontic nursing is linked to the well-being of the nurse-carer but that a cultural change is needed so as to recognize and value emotion work. However, endorsing Staden, we agree that such a change is dependent on the politicization of 'caring'. There is also need for further and broader research concerning the nature of emotional labour and the ethics of care.