Combining Work and Care

Combining Work and Care: Workplace Support and its Contribution to Sustainable Care Arrangements

Project description

Family carers, central to sustainable care, are mostly of working age and employed full-time. Their rising numbers include many mobile workers. Incompatibility between family care and paid work is a known risk to sustainable care, but better evidence is needed of the support needed to promote wellbeing among working carers and those they support.

This team’s research on Combining Work and Care: How do workplace support and technologies contribute to sustainable care arrangements is designed to inform policy and practice on the planning and resourcing of care by generating new insights into sustainable care and wellbeing through comparison of developments in the UK and other countries. Previous UK research on this topic has mostly focused on flexible working arrangements and organisational case studies. Little is known about how care leave (on which the UK has not legislated) might be introduced, or about the voluntary initiatives already being implemented by employers.

This team’s work is undertaken with Sustainable Care programme partners Employers for Carers and Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and our international academic partners. It contributes to knowledge on paid care leave and voluntary workplace arrangements as sources of sustainability and wellbeing in care relations.

This project (led by Professor Jason Heyes, CDW and Professor Janet Fast, University of Alberta) contributes to Sustainable Care: Connecting People and Systems, a major ESRC-funded research programme led by the CIRCLE. The project will generate insights into sustainable care and wellbeing by comparing developments in the UK and other countries and working with Employers for Carers and Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and international academic partners. The project contributes to knowledge on paid care leave and voluntary workplace arrangements as sources of sustainability and wellbeing in care relations.

Project website

Connect with the project by visiting the project website.

Key research outputs and publications by project team members

• The availability and use of flexible work arrangements and caregiving leaves: Lessons learned about policies and practice (2018) Lero, D. & Fast, J. E.Journal of Law & Equity 14, 1-31
• Work-care reconciliation policy: legislation in policy context in eight countries (2017) Yeandle, S. Background paper for German Federal Ministry for Families, Senior Citizens, Women & Youth
• Older workers and care-giving in England: the policy context for older workers’ employment patterns (2017),Yeandle, S. & Buckner, L. Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology, 32: 303–321
• Assessing the needs of employed caregivers and employers (2015) Eales, J., Keating, N., Donalds, S. & Fast, J.Report to Alberta Caregivers Assoc., Edmonton AB: Univ. of Alberta, Research on Aging, Policies & Practice
• Combining paid work and family care: policies and experiences in international perspective (2013) Kröger, T. and Yeandle, S. [eds] Bristol: The Policy Press
• The availability, accessibility and effectiveness of workplace supports for Canadian caregivers (2012) Lero, D., Spinks, N., Fast, J. & Tremblay, D-G., Final report, Gatineau, PQ: Human Resources & Skills Development Canada
• The intersection of caregiving and employment (2012) Fast, J., Dosman, D., Lero, D. & Lucas, S. Final report, Gatineau, PQ, Human Resources & Skills Development Canada
• Carers@work: interviews with working carers: summary report (2012) Hamblin, K. & Hoff, A., Oxford Institute of Population Ageing
• Carers, employment and services (2007) Series of 6 reports, Yeandle, S et al., London: Carers UK
• Who Cares Wins: the social and business benefits of supporting employed carers (2006) Yeandle, S., Bennett, C., Buckner, L., Suokas, A., & Shipton, L. (2006), London: Carers UK

Staff

Professor Janet Fast Professor, Faculty of Agricultural, Life and Environmental Sci - Human Ecology Dept University of Alberta 116 St. and 85 Ave. Edmonton, AB Canada T6G 2R3 jfast@ualberta.ca