Internationally long-term care systems are under pressure, demand for services is rising alongside concerns for financial sustainability. As a labour-intensive sector, long-term care relies heavily on an effective and efficient workforce. As the International Labour Organisation (ILO, 2017) and World Health Organisation (WHO, 2016) have frequently reported, nearly all countries face challenges in recruiting, deploying, and retaining sufficient numbers of well-trained long-term care workers where they are needed. High turnover and attrition rates in many countries is mainly attributed to dissatisfaction with working conditions, including low pay, excessive workload, long hours, and poor career prospects. If not addressed adequately, current deficits in long-term care work and its quality will create an acute and unsustainable global care crisis.
Research investigating diverse aspects of the long-term care workforce is essential to support a sustainable and resilient system. Through this collection, we aim to bring together studies that will lead to a greater understanding of the long-term care workforce and implications for future policy. It will place emphasis on evidence that advances the long-term care workforce research agenda on the basis of well-designed studies and the use of innovative research designs and methods. This Research Topic especially welcomes high quality contributions that address this global challenge and opportunities for insight, improvement, and innovation, but that have wider implications beyond a particular country context.
The long-term care workforce has become increasingly important on the societal as well as the sociological agenda: the crisis of social reproduction or of care; the marketisation of care; and care gaps internationally caused by different welfare regimes. We welcome insights from a range of perspectives: human resources; labour economics; organisation and management; organisational psychology; sociology; and social policy. We are interested in research of relevance to staff groups directly providing care and support, working in people’s homes or in residential settings, and those at the interface of health and care.
This Research Topic invites contributions that cover, but not limited to, challenges and opportunities related to the following themes:
• Recruitment and retention, including rewards and motivations;
• Innovation and new models of care;
• Well-being and emotional labour;
• Organising and industrial relations;
• Gender, race and class inequalities;
• Data and technology.
Submission will take the form of original research articles or brief policy reports. We welcome both quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods studies.
Keywords:
long-term care, workforce, social reproduction, marketisation, welfare, human resources, labour economics, wellbeing, organisation and management, inequalities, employment, innovation
Important Note:
All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
Internationally long-term care systems are under pressure, demand for services is rising alongside concerns for financial sustainability. As a labour-intensive sector, long-term care relies heavily on an effective and efficient workforce. As the International Labour Organisation (ILO, 2017) and World Health Organisation (WHO, 2016) have frequently reported, nearly all countries face challenges in recruiting, deploying, and retaining sufficient numbers of well-trained long-term care workers where they are needed. High turnover and attrition rates in many countries is mainly attributed to dissatisfaction with working conditions, including low pay, excessive workload, long hours, and poor career prospects. If not addressed adequately, current deficits in long-term care work and its quality will create an acute and unsustainable global care crisis.
Research investigating diverse aspects of the long-term care workforce is essential to support a sustainable and resilient system. Through this collection, we aim to bring together studies that will lead to a greater understanding of the long-term care workforce and implications for future policy. It will place emphasis on evidence that advances the long-term care workforce research agenda on the basis of well-designed studies and the use of innovative research designs and methods. This Research Topic especially welcomes high quality contributions that address this global challenge and opportunities for insight, improvement, and innovation, but that have wider implications beyond a particular country context.
The long-term care workforce has become increasingly important on the societal as well as the sociological agenda: the crisis of social reproduction or of care; the marketisation of care; and care gaps internationally caused by different welfare regimes. We welcome insights from a range of perspectives: human resources; labour economics; organisation and management; organisational psychology; sociology; and social policy. We are interested in research of relevance to staff groups directly providing care and support, working in people’s homes or in residential settings, and those at the interface of health and care.
This Research Topic invites contributions that cover, but not limited to, challenges and opportunities related to the following themes:
• Recruitment and retention, including rewards and motivations;
• Innovation and new models of care;
• Well-being and emotional labour;
• Organising and industrial relations;
• Gender, race and class inequalities;
• Data and technology.
Submission will take the form of original research articles or brief policy reports. We welcome both quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods studies.
Keywords:
long-term care, workforce, social reproduction, marketisation, welfare, human resources, labour economics, wellbeing, organisation and management, inequalities, employment, innovation
Important Note:
All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.