ABSTRACT
Male workers in care and pedagogic services are still a rarity. This chapter explores the consequences of that long-existent position, confirmed again in the national profiles for Care Work in Europe (see Chapter 2). What are the reasons for a continuing uneven distribution of men and women in employment in care work, and what are the implications of such a divide, for male and for female workers? Is it possible to speak of a ‘gendered identity’ in care work? Gender issues in care work are of two main types: first, what characterises the experiences of the distinct minority of men who enter this, for them, non-traditional field, and how do female workers interpret male entry? Second, what are the gendered issues for women workers? Specifically, how do the expectations of caring responsibilities for family and at work overlap, and what country variations are there in this debate? Undercutting this discussion is the very low visibility that ‘gender’ has as a theme in discussions about care work practice, as we will discuss later.
