Symposium 13: Disputed temporalities: long-term care services in times of Covid-19

Convenors: Matxalen Legarreta (University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU) and Tomasa Báñez (University Barcelona).

Long-term care services are intended to meet care needs of the most vulnerable population. For this reason, COVID-19 especially affects them. However, the response to the pandemic differs depending on the context, given the structural and sectorial specificities as well as political and socio-cultural factors (Daly, 2020). In all cases, intensifies tensions between clock time, that governs care services, and process time, which characterises care (Davies, 1993). Our proposal attends to how Covid-19 is shaking the temporality of long-term care services, by comparing south and north Europe and using qualitative and quantitative data. We hope to share our findings, and to enlarge our research network.
Comas d’Argemir, Sagastizabal and Lores study the incidence of changes produced in the time- frames of residences (schedules, vacations, attention times …) and problems for reconciling work and family life, caused by them. They use qualitative data to carry out a comparative analysis in the Spanish context,
Roca, Cayuela, Rico and Alcázar, by using a qualitative methodology and from a temporal perspective, analyse the discourses of the involved agents in three community based care services at Spain, day centres, home care service and personal assistance, to find out how the work hours have changed.
Degavre, Casini, Desmette and Mélotte, by using a longitudinal and quantitative methodology, examine how the outbreak has affected the specific situation of in-home nurses in Belgium regarding their work/family balance and highlighting the reasons that lead them to consider, or even decide, to change jobs or organizations and whether these reasons have changed due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
Giordano explores the consequences that time schedule adjustments had on front-line elderly carers, from the material collected before and after the striking of the pandemic in Brussels, which includes in-depth interviews and semi-structured questionnaires to a sample of public and private elderly care providers.

Paper authors:

  • Working in a residence in times of Covid-19: dislocations in work times and in life time
Dolors Comas d’Argemir, University Rovira i Virgili
Marina Sagastizabal, University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU Fernando Lores, University Complutense de Madrid
Redefining Space and Time of care during the COVID-19 in Spain
Mireia Roca University Rovira i Virgili
Salvador Cayuela Sánchez University of Castilla la Mancha
Juan Ignacio Rico Becerra University of Murcia
Ana Alcázar University of Granada
  • The covid-crisis: a risk for work/family balance and career for in-home nurses?
Florence Degavre, CIRTES UCLouvain
Annalisa Casini, CIRTES UCLouvain
Donatienne Desmette, CIRTES UCLouvain
Patricia Mélotte, CRPSI/ULB
  • Home care service providers in Brussels: time adjustments in times of COVID-19 and the consequences for front-line elderly carers
Chiara Giordano, Université Libre de Bruxelles

Discussant: Raquel Martinez-Bujan (University of Da Coruña) and Encarnación Gutiérrez Rodríguez (Justus Liebig University)

Posted in Conference 2021, Symposia.