‘What I Really Want Is a Job’. Male Workers in the Social Care Sector

Abstract

In this article we explore the experiences and perceptions of men in social care occupations in Spain in order to understand their reasons for going into care work, their continuation in the sector, how they are perceived, and to what extent gender matters in their work experiences. We use data from the ongoing qualitative research we are undertaking in Catalonia (Spain) on men as carers; this text is based on 31 semi-structured interviews with male workers in the social care sector. Our results show that the economic crisis has drawn Spanish local men into lower-skilled jobs in the social care sector, thus modifying the stratification process based on gender, class and migration. We find that the ‘glass escalator’ has a very limited effect in social care work, and in consequence, the advantages men enjoy only relate to the ease with which they access such jobs. Finally, we find that men working in the social care sector negotiate their masculinity through the tension between the cultural and class norms that oblige them to have a job and the undervalued or feminized characteristics of their work.