Immigrant women care workers keep Ontario’s home care afloat under exploitative conditions |
Despite recent provincial investments, Ontario’s home-care system is still in crisis. Underfunding, rationed care and ideological preferences for privatization of services undermine dignified aging and care for those in need of support at home.
At the same time, home-care providers, who are disproportionately racialized immigrant women, experience precarious, exploitative and sometimes dangerous working conditions.
My newly released research report, entitled “Caring about Care Workers: Centring Immigrant Women Personal Support Workers in Toronto’s Home Care Sector,” is a collaboration with Social Planning Toronto(SPT), a non-profit, community-based agency. In it, we highlight the concerns and preferences of these undervalued workers.
Our report presents data from interviews with 25 immigrant women working as personal support workers (PSWs) in home care in the City of Toronto. Our conversations, conducted between 2023 and 2025, focused on employment conditions and workplace safety, the critical need for systems change and the possibilities for building PSW collective power.
Home care provides crucial supports to seniors who want to live in their own homes longer, facilitates the autonomy of people with disabilities and aids in the recovery of individuals following a hospital........