Who are the Health Workers? Patients and Other Unpaid Workers in Health Care

Abstract

Conventional theories of the division of labour and of the professions have failed adequately to deal with two important facets: namely, the work done by the client in service industries and that service work is done in both public and domestic domains. This article, using empirical evidence, argues that the patient should be included as a health worker if analyses are to transcend the views, time and culture of dominant participants. To include the unpaid as well as the paid workers involves analyses of the gender order, for the majority of unpaid workers are doing health work in the domestic domain and are women, while the majority of prestigious professionals are men. Concurrently issues of stratification among the paid workers have to be remembered including issues of race.