Control and participation for employees within geriatric care: does ownership make a difference?

The welfare sector in Sweden has undergone extensive changes during the last 15 years, and private and cooperative actors have entered the public market. In the light of high sick-leave rates, especially in female-dominated professions, it is important to identify factors that can help to improve the working conditions and promote health among employees. The purpose of this study was to compare how two of these factors, participation and control, are perceived by employees in three different forms of ownership: public, cooperative and private. In all, 186 employees working at seven geriatric care institutions with three ownership forms were invited to participate in the study. 82% responded to a questionnaire containing issues related to working conditions, e.g. control and participation. The one-way ANOVA and Kruskal-Wallis were used to analyse the findings among the three groups of employees working in public, cooperative or private setting. Results showed that employees in cooperatives experienced more participation than employees working in the public and private sectors in two out of four variables - employee's voice concerning work environment issues and sympathetic response from the manager and decision-making concerning work activities at large. As expected, there were no difference in perceived control between ownership forms, which might be explained by the fact that the work nature in geriatric care is rather regulated, restricted and formalized, regardless of ownership form, resulting in limited freedom over the work situation for the individual employee.