Contesting identity of homemakers: Housewife worker and daughter?

Abstract

One of the administrative dilemmas in home-care delivery is that an appropriate and trusting relationship between the home-care worker and the client must be developed; yet this relationship is not readily visible to service managers. Setting up organizational processes for building allegiance and turning the home-care worker into an ideal one become major administrative tasks for home-care managers. Within such organizational context, the home-care worker is then faced with the issue of developing her own identity. This study lays out the Chinese particulars of what being a home-care worker is all about on the ground in Taiwan. In the Chinese context of family and cultural prerogatives around filial daughter and doing good, being a worker (agency perspective) and being a daughter (client`s desire) are both problematic. Many home-care workers view themselves as a do-gooder portrayed by the Buddhist discourse of karma. The findings suggest that administrative tasks, client, and worker relationship may appear similar on the surface but the dynamics are quite different.