Care/Work Research Group

About this group

Led by Associate Professor Katherine Ravenswood, the Care/Work Research Group brings together research expertise and scholarship on care work to contribute to better practice, policy and scholarship in this field. Care work is work that is done as paid jobs (such as healthcare assistants, nurses, midwives, teaching involving care) and unpaid (such as caring for your family members or volunteering). The Care/Work Research Group focuses on high quality, critical research that is strongly connected to communities and society. The group conducts both qualitative and quantitative research, covering multiple perspectives of care work including topics such as:

• Gender and pay equity
• Valuing care work in our society
• Benchmarking workforce trends, managing the workforce
• Employee wellbeing and health and safety of the care and support workforce
• Working mothers
• Diversity and inclusion: paid and unpaid careers
• Wellbeing of midwives

Members

Current research

• Workplace violence in home care settings

Funding: Health Research Council Health Delivery Research Activation Grant (HRC 20/1254)

Description: This project investigates the complex context of workplace violence in home care settings in New Zealand. It aims to establish the evidence needs for research that can inform policy decisions to prevent and better deal with workplace violence in home care settings. It focuses on three specific contexts: community support, disability support and family carers.

Team: Katherine Ravenswood (Lead), Betty Ofe-Grant, Julie Douglas, Fiona Macdonald (RMIT)

• Inquiry into the wellbeing of community-based midwives

Funding: Health Research Council Health Delivery Research Activation Grant (HRC 20/1202)

Description: This project seeks to understand what enables and hinders the wellbeing of community-based midwives. The primary goal of the research project is to use a socio-cultural lens to explore wellbeing amongst New Zealand's community-based midwives

Team: Tago Mharapara (Lead), Janine Clemons, Nimbus Staniland, Katherine Ravenswood

• Understanding the Implementation of the 2017 Pay Equity Settlement

Description: This project began in 2019, working with the Caring Counts Coalition and the Human Rights Commission of New Zealand to understand the impact of the 2017 Pay Equity Settlement on managers and employees in the residential aged care, home and community care, disability support, mental health, and addiction support sectors.

Download 'The Value of Care': full report

Team: Katherine Ravenswood and Julie Douglas (Co-leads)

Past research

• The New Zealand Carework Survey 2019 (formerly aged care workforce survey)

Description: This survey benchmarks trends in the carework workforce in New Zealand. We have conducted and reported on surveys in 2014 and 2016 (below) as well as publishing academic journal articles from the survey data.

Read the report on the 2019 data here

Read the supplementary materials for the report on the 2019 data here

Read reports on surveys in 2014 and 2016 with supplementary information

Team: Katherine Ravenswood (Lead) and Julie Douglas