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In many countries, both the number of older people in need of care and the number of employed caregivers of elderly relatives will increase over the next decades. The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which perceived organizational, supervisor, and coworker support for eldercare reduce employed caregivers’ strain and weaken the relationship between eldercare demands and strain.

Survey data were collected from 100 employed caregivers from one organization.

Results showed that eldercare demands were positively related to strain, and perceived organizational eldercare support (POES) was negatively related to strain. In addition, high POES weakened the relationship between eldercare demands and strain.

The cross-sectional design and use of self-report scales constitute limitations of the study.

POES is a resource for employed caregivers, especially when their eldercare demands are high.

This research highlights the relative importance of different forms of perceived support for reducing employed caregivers’ strain and weakening the relationship between eldercare demands and strain.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate eldercare issues in China through exploring what was discussed about eldercare in a Chinese online community for older adults (OCOA).

Netnography was used to explore eldercare-related online discussion in a Chinese OCOA – LaoYouBang. After a two-month-long online observation, 275 microblogs and 594 comments were collected and analysed qualitatively and quantitatively.

The main findings include as follows: the users involved in an online discussion about eldercare were consist of four categories, namely, elderly user, non-elderly user, advertiser and community administrator. Non-elderly user include the elderly’s caregivers and families, young and middle-aged people concerning about eldercare. From 2012 to 2017, eldercare issues gradually became refined and differentiated in China and elderly users’ contribution proportion and activeness increased yearly. According to the results of thematic analysis, users’ information needs for eldercare included opinion, news, practice, emotion, knowledge and others. In China, some changes have taken place in the public’s conceptions of eldercare, embodied in the changes in the public’s attention, attitudes and cognition. Changes in user structure and communication patterns in OCOA have also been noted. OCOA plays an important role in eldercare information dissemination and social support exchange and helps to meet the eldercare challenges.

This study explored an online community for older adults. This is the first netnography study in the information field on Chinese OCOA. This paper provides new perspectives to explore eldercare issues and OCOA in other regions and cultures and it also provides some suggestions to improve OCOA.

In order to encourage women to work and reduce the effects of the skills shortage of the mid‐1990s, flexible working patterns and child care are often seen as of key importance. An ageing population is leading to increasingly intrusive “eldercare” (caring for elderly dependants) burdens upon women employees and managers which make it hard for them to enter the workforce. The extent of the ageing problem in the population is examined. The effects of eldercare burdens upon individuals and organisations are discussed and corporate responses to the problem in the US are described as possible ways ahead in the treatment of eldercare as part of an employee benefits programme.

Discrimination against workers because of their family responsibilities can violate federal law, yet scholars know little about the context surrounding perceived family responsibilities discrimination (FRD). This chapter investigates both the types of caregiving responsibilities that put workers at risk of FRD and the organizational contexts that give rise to perceived FRD.

We identify features of FRD which make detecting it particularly difficult and theorize the mechanisms by which caregiving responsibilities and organizational contexts lead to perceived FRD. We draw on data from the 2008 National Study of the Changing Workforce for our empirical analysis.

Caregivers who provide both child and eldercare are more likely to perceive FRD than caregivers who provide one type of care, as are people who experience high levels of family-to-work interference and who spend more daily time on childcare. Certain family-friendly and meritocratic organizational contexts are associated with lower perceived FRD.

We measure perceptions, not actual discrimination on the basis of family care responsibilities. Our research cannot pinpoint the factors which intensify or lessen actual discrimination, just perceptions of it.

By pinpointing the characteristics of organizations in which perceived FRD occurs, this chapter shows how organizations can create workplaces in which perceived FRD is less likely.

Media reporting is one of many circumstances that nursing homes have to relate to, because of the reputational risks. The aim of this article is to investigate media representations of Swedish nursing homes in relation to reports on an annual national user survey.

The empirical data consist of 381 Swedish newspaper articles about the survey results. The questions guiding the analysis were: what messages on nursing homes are communicated, and how are claims organized in order to appear factual?

The data show that press reports focus on comparisons of care units' survey results, eldercare representatives' explanations of the results, and what improvements will be made in order to do better in the next year's survey. With their use of truth-making rhetoric, press articles construct survey results as credible and valid, thus mirroring user perceptions and ultimately nursing home quality. The selection of nursing home representatives' comments equally reinforces the validity of claims.

Given nursing homes' problems with demonstrating success, the authors argue that media reports on the user survey is a way for eldercare organizations to achieve results in an otherwise resultless field, and while media reports might be seen as prompting change in nursing home care, what is ultimately achieved is the legitimation of a costly survey with low response rate.

The purpose of this paper is to trace the development of a methodology for identification of stakeholders, their demands, wants and expectations.

Within the public eldercare, data were collected by means of participant observations to assess the methodology under development and to explore the stakeholder view within public eldercare.

In public eldercare, the customer focus is often emphasised, but not always apparent. Nursing staff have the responsibility to give patients the right care. However, these customers often have to be satisfied subject to meeting demands from relatives, management and society, just to mention a few of the other potential stakeholders. Indeed, nurses have diverging views of who the stakeholders are and also find it problematic to prioritize between stakeholders' interests. The findings include a stakeholder methodology, which suggests steps for identification of stakeholders and stakeholders' demands, wants and expectations on an individual employee level as well as steps for group discussions concerning how to achieve a common view and balance different interests on an organizational level.

The implications of the findings are mainly valid for the Swedish public eldercare. However, both experiences and the stakeholder methodology should be valuable both for other public and private organisations.

The study might stimulate the debate on the somewhat controversial customer focus in public eldercare. It explores the suitability of stakeholder theory on an individual level and presents a tentative stakeholder methodology.

Hierarchical and flat organizational types are predominant in Spain and Sweden, respectively. To study how managers’ commitment and work overcommitment (WOC) affect employee well-being, and job perception in these different countries can shed insight on how to improve eldercare organization. The purpose of this paper was to study the association between eldercare employee exposure to managers’ commitment and WOC, and employee mental well-being and job perception and how these associations differed between Spain and Sweden.

A questionnaire with validated questions on commitment, WOC, mental well-being and job perception, operationalized as the perception of quality of care and turnover intent, was sent out to eldercare managers and employees in Spain and Sweden. t-Tests, χ² and linear regression were applied to study the associations and differences between the countries.

Interaction analyses revealed that Spanish employees’ mental well-being and job perception were influenced by their managers’ commitment and WOC in that manager commitment improved and WOC impaired well-being and job perception. However, the Swedish eldercare employees were not influenced by their managers on these parameters.

The impact of managerial commitment and WOC differed between employees in Spain and Sweden, possibly because the preconditions for leadership varied due to differences in organizational type.

This study compares the managers’ impact on employee health and job perception in two countries with different organizational prerequisites. Moreover, managers’ commitment and WOC were estimated by the managers themselves and did not rely on the employees’ perception, which improved ecological validity.

Since 2009 Swedish municipalities may apply the Act on System of Choice (LOV) in, among other things, eldercare. About half of the 290 Swedish municipalities have chosen this within home-care services for older citizens, thus creating conditions for a welfare mix where private and public providers compete. Some of these municipalities later made decisions to abolish LOV. This article aims to analyse the arguments put forward by municipal politicians to abolish LOV and discusses if the case of abandoning LOV represents a case of re-municipalization.

Qualitative method was used to analyse decision protocols and media materials from 20 Swedish municipalities that had abolished LOV in home-care services.

The article shows that politics and ideology seem to have only a limited significance in abolishing LOV. The most important arguments found in the empirical materials were instead pragmatic and related to the transaction costs: in smaller municipalities about the weak position of private providers and in larger municipalities about reported cases of welfare crime and extensive needs to control and review. In smaller municipalities, LOV was replaced by public monopoly and in larger municipalities by other types of procurements.

With its focus on eldercare in party-dominated municipalities, the article adds knowledge to the literature on drivers of re-municipalization but also discusses possible delimitations of the concept of re-municipalization.

This study sets out to investigate the influence of four work/life benefits on job choice and to examine individual differences that moderate the effects of work/life benefits during recruitment.

Participants (n=125) completed an internet self‐efficacy survey measuring their sense of competence in being able to use the internet effectively. They also filled out a demographic questionnaire and a policy‐capturing survey which asked them to read numerous job descriptions and rate how likely it was that they would accept each job. The levels of four benefits (childcare, telecommuting, eldercare, flextime benefits) varied across job advertisements. Analyses examined the degree to which these four independent variables affected the willingness to accept a job offer.

Childcare benefits influenced the job choices of 58 per cent of the sample. This exceeded the influence of flextime (33 per cent), telecommuting (26 per cent), and eldercare benefits (33 per cent). Childcare attracted women more than men. Internet self‐efficacy predicted the attractiveness of telecommuting.

It is important to consider the degree to which these findings generalize to non‐US job seekers, as well as applicants in more naturalistic settings.

Knowledge of influential work/life benefits (e.g. childcare) can enhance recruitment efforts in a competitive marketplace. Data on variables that moderate the attractiveness of work/life policies will enable organizations to further tailor their benefits to the types of applicants they seek.

In practice, work/life benefits are commonly offered in the hope of recruiting new employees. Yet, little is known about which benefits best attract new graduates. Moreover, research has only begun to examine individual differences that moderate the effect of work/life policies on recruitment outcomes. The present study addresses these gaps in the literature.

Shanghai is currently faced with a rapid increase in the ageing population and demand for elderly homes. Continuing care retirement community (CCRC) has been emerging as a high-end alternative to offer specialised accommodation to the elderly in major cities. Since the first development in 2008, the industry is now still at the infancy stage. This study aims to examine the investment barriers hindering the supply and demand of CCRCs with an aim to recommend practical and senior housing policy measures to facilitate CCRC developments.

Multiple-case study method was used to confirm whether the literature findings on investment barriers apply to the context of Shanghai. Four representative CCRC development cases in Shanghai were examined, in which qualitative data were collected from interviews with experienced CCRC development managers and quantitative data from a questionnaire survey of the CCRC residents.

Operation management experience, financial risks and government support policy were found to be the main supply barriers. Chinese traditional family-oriented culture and affordability were not the main demand barriers of CCRCs in Shanghai. Poor quality of services and living environment were identified as the main barriers suppressing the demand for CCRC.

Although common trends and views can be drawn from the representative cases in Shanghai to provide valid results, further research should be conducted on other major cities in China so that the results can be widely applied.

Successful CCRC investment strategy should focus on partnering with experienced professional eldercare management companies, provisions of high-quality medical professionals and trained care personnel and delivery of flexible care service, along with intensive capital flows for land, construction and operating costs.

Additional senior housing policy support should be established to promote the CCRC supply to address the ageing needs, particularly granting lands for CCRC developments at Tiers 1 and 2 major cities where the land cost is high.

This research’s practical and policy measures can be applied to enable and promote CCRC developments in Shanghai, thus benefitting both housing investors and the government. The findings also form a baseline for CCRC developments in other major cities.