照料劳动与年龄困境:基于养老机构护理员的研究

Care Work and Aging Conundrum: Elder Care Workers in China’s Nursing Homes

当前,中国的机构养老服务从业者主要为来自社会中下阶层的中老年女性,她们的平均年龄偏高,受教育程度较低,接受专业培训不足,被视为制约养老服务行业发展的瓶颈之一。本研究采用交织性分析的视角,把年龄这一维度带回性别和劳动研究。本研究首先考察了当前照料行业的职业层级和年龄结构以及形成这一分化的社会文化逻辑,发现儿童照料的精细化和老年照料的贬值使得养老护理员成为行业中平均年龄最高、职业层级最低的群体;其次,采用传记性视角呈现护理员们的生命历程,通过考察她们在社会生产体制和社会再生产体制中的位置和轨迹,说明这群中老年女性是如何成为养老护理员的。年龄与性别、阶层、城乡等社会不平等体系的交织作用共同形塑了她们的社会境遇和职业选择。

The current elder care services in China rely mainly on a group of middle-aged and older women from lower class with low levels of education and insufficient professional training.This is seen as one of the bottlenecks limiting the development of the elder care industry in the future.This paper applies the intersectional analysis,bringing age back in studies together with gender and labor/work.Firstly,the paper reveals the current hierarchy and age structure of the care work force,as well as the cultural and social factors that drive the far spectrums of the specialization of child care at one end and at the other,the devaluation of elder care.This devaluation of elder care as a profession is related to the highest average age and lowest income of the elder care workers in the care industry.Secondly,their narratives of lived experiences reveal that many elder care workers have lived through social changes and are poorly situated in the subjugation of social reproduction to production.They became elder care workers because the intersections of age,gender,class,and urban-rural structure shape their lives and career choices.