Chapter 8: Super-invisibility: ‘older’ care workers in home care and residential long-term care

This week, in Chapter 8, Tamara Daly, Sara Charlesworth, and Frode F. Jacobsen discuss the concept of “super-invisibility”.

In this chapter, our authors look at paid care work conditions across Australia, Canada, and Norway, with a specific focus on age equity for older workers in long-term care and home care. These sectors sit within one of the eight WHO age-friendly domains, community supports and health services  yet the workers sustaining these systems are often left out of the conversation entirely.

Across all three countries, our authors find that a troubling pattern emerges. Poor working conditions in long-term and home care, including physically demanding labour, low wages, limited job security, and inadequate health protections lead to poor health, safety, and financial outcomes for care workers as they age. And among this workforce, older care workers are particularly vulnerable.

Care work has long been undervalued across many societies. As care workers age, this undervaluing compounds. Their labour remains unseen, and their own retirement security, health protections, and workplace safety needs receive little policy attention. The result, our authors have described as “super-invisibility” in policy and in planning…

Read the full chapter to find out more! The chapter and the rest of our book can be found on the Bristol University Press Digital webpage