Summary
Historically, most care for older and disabled people in the UK has been provided by women in the home. However, this is changing. The way we provide care is becoming more formal, and many people now receive some care from paid workers. Despite this change, care is often still seen as ‘women’s work’, and the care sector has continued to be female dominated; today, men make up only 18 percent of the workforce. As a result, men who choose to work in the social care sector could be seen as challenging traditional gender norms and stereotypes. This makes them of particular interest to researchers who study gender and equality issues.
Men who work in the care sector are also more likely to be migrants and/or to belong to a minority ethnic group than female care workers. As a result, studying male care workers could also provide information about how migrant workers enter the care sector, and how different minority groups experience work, racism and exploitation in the sector.
As well as being an important topic for social researchers, the high vacancy rate in social care has led some people to suggest that more men need to be recruited into care. Therefore, studying how and why men come into the care sector, and how their gender and racial identities affect their experiences of care work, could help us recruit and retain more men within care.
In this Master’s dissertation, I describe the research literature relating to men who work in adult social care. I consider how the care sector has developed, the challenges it faces, and the position of its male and migrant workers. I then give an overview of the general academic literature relating to care, and discuss the relationship between men, masculinity and care, and the connection between race, migration and care.
The second part of the dissertation includes a research proposal. This describes the work I am planning to complete during my PhD. The research has two aims. First, to understand the experiences of men who work in the adult social care sector in England. Second, to consider how this information might be used to attract more men into care. In the proposal, I outline my aims and objectives, my approach to the research, and my methods. I also describe how I will recruit my participants, some of the ethical issues I need to consider, and how I will ensure that my research has an impact on organisations outside academia, including schools, colleges and the Department of Health and Social Care.