Like many other countries, Australian government policy focuses on extending working life as a response to concern about the cost of an ageing population. In this article, we focus on older aged care workers and highlight how poor employment conditions hinder their capacity to work in later life. Many of these workers are at risk of time and income poverty, since they are on low wage, part-time, low-hour contracts and need to pick up extra shifts to earn a living wage. The interactions between time poverty and income poverty have been developed within a body of literature that analyses the quantities of time individuals and households allocate to paid employment, household, family and caring responsibilities, sleep and self-care. Burchardt’s notion of ‘time and income capability’ brings insights from this corpus into dialogue with the capabilities approach, a political philosophy that equates wellbeing with the breadth of realistic opportunities for people to do things that they have reason to value. This study uses Burchardt’s construct to analyse qualitative data from interviews with 20 older personal care workers. While all the workers we spoke with engaged in self-sustaining practices, there were varying levels of opportunity to pursue them. Workers with less time and income capability found it more difficult to sustain themselves and their households. Some employer practices diminished workers’ time and income capability: unrealistic workloads necessitating unpaid hours; providing little opportunity for input into rostering; and late-notice roster changes. When time and income capability was too low, workers’ informal care duties, social connections and health were compromised. In the Australian aged care sector, several changes can enable longer working lives: sufficient paid hours to perform the role, wage loading for hours in addition to those contracted, written notice for roster changes, and increased wages.

中文翻译：

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为老年护理工作者安排更长的工作寿命：时间和收入能力方法

与许多其他国家一样，澳大利亚政府的政策侧重于延长工作寿命，以应对对人口老龄化成本的担忧。在本文中，我们重点关注老年护理工作者，并强调恶劣的就业条件如何阻碍他们晚年工作。这些工人中的许多人面临时间和收入贫困的风险，因为他们的工资低、兼职、工时少，需要额外轮班才能赚取生活工资。时间贫困和收入贫困之间的相互作用是在大量文献中发展起来的，这些文献分析了个人和家庭分配给有偿就业、家庭、家庭和照顾责任、睡眠和自我照顾的时间数量。Burchardt 的“时间和收入能力”概念将这一语料库的见解带入与能力方法的对话中，这种政治哲学将幸福等同于人们做他们有理由重视的事情的现实机会的广度。本研究使用 Burchardt 的结构来分析对 20 位年长个人护理工作者的访谈的定性数据。虽然与我们交谈的所有工人都从事自我维持的实践，但追求这些实践的机会各不相同。时间和收入能力较低的工人发现养活自己和家庭更加困难。一些雇主的做法减少了工人的时间和收入能力：不切实际的工作量需要无偿工作；为名册提供投入的机会很少；和延迟通知名册变化。当时间和收入能力太低时，工人的非正式护理职责、社会关系和健康都会受到损害。在澳大利亚老年护理行业，一些变化可以延长工作寿命：有足够的带薪时间来履行这个角色，除了合同工时之外的工时工资，花名册变化的书面通知，以及增加的工资。