As a member of the labour geography group, I am interested in the transformation of labour in the care sector. My specific focus is on long-term care facilities and how this work is valued by exploring the working conditions, wages, quality of care indicators and worforce demographics. 

PhD project: Effects of working conditions and care indicators on recruitment and retention in Ticinese nursing homes.

My research project aims to study how the institutional labour processes and the measurement of care are affecting the ability to recruit and retain workers. This project is part of the Swiss Learning Health System (SLHS) and it will focus on nursing homes located in the Canton of Ticino. The recruitment and retention of workers in nursing homes has been a constant challenge, and will only increase with an aging society. Although this challenge is widely recognized and accepted by a wide range of actors, the core issues are not being addressed. The professions in this sector continue to be undervalued with lower wages, poorer working conditions and a high degree of burnout. Consequently, this contributes to a poor image of the sector for aspiring applicants.

In my project I aim to investigate the conditions of work for nursing home professions that are derived from the labour processes and how the care is measured. I will start by understanding what the labour processes are in nursing homes and the formal methods that institutions utilize to measure care. Secondly, I will conduct qualitative fieldwork by interviewing a wide range of nursing home professions in addition to key informant experts. With this data collection, I hope to provide an understanding of how these internal factors ultimately affect the ability to recruit and retain workers in these institutions.      

since 2021 University of Zurich, Ph.D. candidate in Labour Geography 

2020           University of Kassel, MA in Labour Policies and Globalisation 

2013           University of Alberta, BA in Political Science 

PANEL PRESENTER 

Challenges and Opportunities for Organizing Migrant Care Workers in Switzerland. 15th Global Labour University Conference, online (April 2022)