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Breaking the mould: new trajectories in the domiciliary care of older people in Ireland
- Authors:
- DOYLE Martha, TIMONEN Virpi
- Journal article citation:
- International Journal of Social Welfare, 17(4), October 2008, pp.324-332.
- Publisher:
- Wiley
This article reviews the development of domiciliary care services for older people in Ireland over the last decade. It reveals three central developments, namely (i) the first steps, in the Irish context, towards a quasi-market; (ii) the introduction of cash-for-care and the subsequent notable segmentation of care tasks among three provider groups; and (iii) a rapidly increasing reliance on for-profit private home care providers. The authors conclude that while the Irish social care regime is still anchored in important ways in the primacy of informal (family) care and the subsidiarity principle, it has broken path-dependency by evolving towards an increasingly complex mix of public, not-for-profit and for-profit provision and financing. The most policy-relevant aspect of this new constellation is the lack of a regulatory framework that would enable the State to monitor the multiple and diverse providers with the view to ensuring the quality of home care services.
Expanded, but not regulated: ambiguity in home-care policy in Ireland
- Authors:
- TIMONEN Virpi, DOYLE Martha, O’DWYER Ciara
- Journal article citation:
- Health and Social Care in the Community, 20(3), May 2012, pp.310-318.
- Publisher:
- Wiley
The article examines this incompatibility between the expansion of home-care services in Ireland, and the failure to develop policies to govern access to and quality of services. It suggests that the key factors that motivated home-care expansion in the Irish case were: problems in the acute hospital sector and the perception of home care as a partial solution to these; and significant GDP growth that provided politicians with the means to fund expansion in home-care services. The key factors that inhibited the development of a policy framework to govern home-care services were: weak governance structures in health services and decision-making at national level based on short-term political gain; Ireland’s adherence to the liberal welfare state model and concern about uncontrollable care costs in the face of population ageing; until 2010, paucity of attention to home-care issues in the Irish media; and weak provider interest representation.
"The poor carer": ambivalent social construction of the home care worker in elder care services
- Authors:
- TIMONEN Virpi, LOLICH Luciana
- Journal article citation:
- Journal of Gerontological Social Work, 62(7), 2019, pp.728-748.
- Publisher:
- Taylor and Francis
- Place of publication:
- Philadelphia, USA
This article examines the social construction of the home care worker from the perspective of various professionals in the elder care sector in Ireland. The research, using the Grounded Theory method, involved focus groups with 31 participants comprising health and social work professionals as well as care agency managers and policy planners. The social construction of the elder care worker is characterised by ambivalence. The authors connect the concept of ambivalence at the micro level of human relationships to structural factors that are driving the ambivalence. Ambivalence towards home care workers is shaped by structural factors including the precariousness of care work, the commodification of time, and the stipulated personalisation of services. The irreconcilable contrasts between portrayals of care workers as both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ are indicative of deep contradictions in the expectations that contemporary care systems direct at paid caregivers. Ambivalence arises from the commodified and dispensable status of care workers, and fundamental transformations in their training, working conditions and pay are required to move away from this ambivalence and towards care workers’ equal status with professionals in the care sector. (Edited publisher abstract)
Intergenerational friendships of older adults: why do we know so little about them?
- Authors:
- O'DARE Catherine Elliott, TIMONEN Virpi, CONLON Catherine
- Journal article citation:
- Ageing and Society, 39(1), 2019, pp.1-16.
- Publisher:
- Cambridge University Press
Intergenerational projects bringing together older adults and younger adults are increasingly common, but there is little research on unstructured, naturally occurring interaction, and in particular friendship between different generations. The aim of this article is to interrogate why so little is known about adult intergenerational friendship. A systematic literature search on this topic, covering a 30-year period, yielded only six articles which satisfied the inclusion criteria. This prompted the authors to examine how the topics of intergenerational friendship and friendship in old age have been approached in the literature to date. The authors argue that the paucity of research on intergenerational friendship reflects the focus of existing research on homophily, and consequently friendships among older or younger adults; and that this in turn reflects a social construction of older adults as unsuited to friendship with younger adults. Investigations of intergenerational friendship can help challenge the images and models of ageing and older adults that both research and societies currently operate with, and are constrained by. The authors conclude by calling for research that explores the views and experiences of older adults as parties to intergenerational relationships that are non-kin, chosen and based on mutual enjoyment. (Edited publisher abstract)
Future of care services in Ireland: old answers to new challenges?
- Authors:
- TIMONEN Virpi, MCMENAMIN Iain
- Journal article citation:
- Social Policy and Administration, 36(1), February 2002, pp.20-35.
- Publisher:
- Wiley
Until recently, the small proportion of older people in the Irish population and low labour-market participation rates among women provided the underpinnings of the informal care model in Ireland. However, changes in family structures, women’s labour market participation and population ageing are making this model less sustainable. Provides a detailed analysis of policy changes and initiatives in the area of care provision which show that while the challenges facing the system are new, most of the solutions provided continue to rely on the model of home-based care.
Early-life circumstances and later-life loneliness in Ireland
- Authors:
- KAMIYA Yumiko, DOYLE Martha, TIMONEN Virpi
- Journal article citation:
- Gerontologist, 54(5), 2014, pp.773-783.
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
Purpose of the Study: This article examines the impact of early- and later-life circumstances on loneliness among people aged 65+ in Ireland. Design and Methods: Data are from the first wave of the Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing, a nationally representative sample of community-dwelling adults aged 50+. The participants (N = 2,645) aged 65+ were included in the analysis. Because of the large number of never married persons in the older Irish population, the authors first used a multinomial logistic model to examine which childhood circumstances are associated with current marital status. The authors then estimated multiple regression models for loneliness, in stages conforming to the life course, to examine the extent to which early events are mediated by later events. Results: Poor childhood socioeconomic status (for men and women) and parental substance abuse (for men) have direct effects on loneliness at older ages. Implications: The results indicate the significance of the childhood environment for understanding loneliness in later life. Future research should examine possible pathways not currently measured that may be responsible for the association of early environment and later-life loneliness and explore the links between childhood and other measures of well-being in old age. The relationship of childhood socioeconomic deprivation and parental substance abuse with adult well-being should be an important consideration in social policy planning. (Edited publisher abstract)
Living in institutional care: residents’ experiences and coping strategies
- Authors:
- TIMONEN Virpi, O’DWYER Ciara
- Journal article citation:
- Social Work in Health Care, 48(6), August 2009, pp.597-613.
- Publisher:
- Taylor and Francis
- Place of publication:
- Philadelphia, USA
Insights into daily living in residential care settings are rare. The discussion presented in this article is based on data collected during the course of an evaluation of a residents’ council established within a large public-sector residential care setting in Ireland. The facility caters mainly for older people, many of whom have cognitive impairments or severe physical disabilities. The analysis of the data is based upon Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, and looks at physiological needs, safety needs, love/belonging needs, esteem needs, and self-actualisation needs. The article also discusses the coping mechanisms that the residents had developed to deal with the limitations and challenges of living in institutional care. The results demonstrated that although the residents did have concerns about basic needs, such as food, physical comfort, and interference with sleep, the inadequacy of these basic provisions were not the central difficulty for them. Rather, it was the lack of mental stimulation and respect shown to them and the loss of dignity and independence that ensued. The analysis indicated that ‘lower’ (basic) needs and ‘higher’ (esteem and self-actualisation) needs are closely intertwined and mutually reinforcing and should therefore be accorded equal emphasis by professionals employed within residential care settings.