The business of care: the moral labour of care workers

Drawing on a case study conducted in a private residential care home, this article examines the emotional labour of care workers in relation to the moral construction of care and the practical experiences of work. An examination of the company's discursive attempts to construct, manage and demarcate its employees' emotional labour was carried out alongside an exploration of the carers' own interpretations of, and enrolment in, the care-giving role. The potential economic and emotional consequences of these occurrences were a key focus of the inquiry. The study found that carers, encouraged by the company, naturalised their emotional labour, and that this had contradictory consequences. On the one hand it justified the economic devaluation of the carer's work and left her vulnerable to emotional over-involvement and client aggression. On the other, it allowed the worker to defend the moral interests of those within her care and to see when those interests were in conflict with the economic motivations of her employer.