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Care Work: Professionalization and Valuation of Nurses and Nursing Assistants in Health and Old Age in Colombia

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Care and Care Workers

Part of the book series: Latin American Societies ((LAS))

Abstract

Latin American studies on care work have shown processes of professionalization both from the State services and from the market, outside the domestic sphere. This chapter, based on what it calls the conceptual turn of care, asks the extent to which institutionalized care and the advance in the processes of its professionalization have managed to value female care work. For which it examines the working conditions of professional and nonprofessional caregivers in the health and old-age care service in Colombia. In a context of high growth of employment in health care and old age and its feminization by about 80%, it focuses its attention on nurses and nursing assistants, who support the greatest burden of care in these sectors, and explores working conditions and the devaluation of institutionalized care work and the limits for the flourishing of an ethics of care. This chapter shows how the growth and commodification of health care and eldercare undervalue care work and reproduce gender injustices.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    This conceptual part continues in summary what was said in the cited text of Pineda (2019).

  2. 2.

    OTHS relies on the National Single Registry of the Human Talent in Health (ReTHUS), where everyone with assistance, technical, or professional health training is registered.

  3. 3.

    Once the free trade agreement with the United States was negotiated, the situation generated by the CTAs entered the public agenda, which made the government intervene as of 2010 and somewhat revert the growth of outsourced labor through CTAs.

  4. 4.

    A fine imposed by the Ministry of Labor can be commuted or forgiven if the punished company commits to directly hire its outsourced workers. This clinic made this commitment.

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Acknowledgment

This chapter was translated from its original Spanish version to English by Jill Haring.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Interdisciplinary Center of Development Studies (CIDER), Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia

    Javier A. Pineda Duque

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  1. Javier A. Pineda Duque
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Correspondence to Javier A. Pineda Duque .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

    Nadya Araujo Guimarães

  2. National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), Center for Sociological and Political Research of Paris (CRESPPA), Paris, France

    Helena Hirata

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Pineda Duque, J.A. (2021). Care Work: Professionalization and Valuation of Nurses and Nursing Assistants in Health and Old Age in Colombia. In: Araujo Guimarães, N., Hirata, H. (eds) Care and Care Workers. Latin American Societies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-51693-2_12

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-51693-2_12

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