This thoughtful book provides a refreshing, comparative perspective on the future of care homes in our post-pandemic world. Building on more than a decade of collaborative international and interdisciplinary research in Canada, Germany, Norway, Sweden, the UK and the US, it employs a feminist political economy framework to address the key challenges facing care homes in this turbulent era. With particular attention to lessons learned in Canada, Sweden, and Norway, the contributing authors argue that publicly-funded care homes remain critical to care arrangements but require policy and practice transformations to produce equitable and supportive conditions. Attentive to the specific contexts and tensions that shape care, chapters address key questions about care home quality and labour in relation to gender, race, ethnicity, religion and class. The book analyses the physical and social boundaries that set the conditions for quality of life and care, moving beyond the minimum to explain how nursing homes can provide joy. Offering alternative approaches to the complex challenges facing this vital public service, this book will be a key reference for students and scholars of health policy, comparative social policy and social work. Its integration of statistical, policy and practice analysis with ethnographic research will prove invaluable to those concerned with long-term care policy and practice.

EPDF and EPUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence. The COVID-19 pandemic has made unpaid care more visible through its absence, while also increasing the need for it. Drawing on a range of research projects covering Canada, Germany, Norway, Sweden, the UK and the US, this book documents a broad spectrum of unpaid work performed by residents, relatives, volunteers and staff in nursing homes. It demonstrates how boundaries between paid and unpaid work are flexible, varying considerably with conditions, time, place and intersectional populations. By examining the complex labour process within nursing homes, this book provides insight and understanding which will be critical in planning for nursing home care post-pandemic.