Job Quality of Home Help Workers in Lithuania

Abstract

The article analyses the quality of working places of workers providing home help services in Lithuania and, in parallel, seeks to highlight factors that would contribute to improving this quality. The latter element is particularly relevant in the light of a growing need for such services both on the EU level and in Lithuania. The trends of the quality of working places in the care sector are reviewed in EU countries. A theoretical concept of the quality of working places is discussed and used as a basis to analyse the findings of the questionnaire survey of home help workers conducted in Lithuania in 2016. The survey suggests that there is a threat of facing a problem of labour ageing in the sector of social services and of a shortage of workers in the sector of social services in the future unless due attention is paid to the peculiarities of work, employment and working conditions as structural elements of the quality of employment in this sector. The survey also revealed rather significant territorial differences in the elements of the working places at issue between large cities and smaller towns and municipal centres.