Sustainable Elderly Care. Relevance and Organization of Professional Care Services Considered From a Socio-Ethical Stance

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The provision of adequate, dignified care for the growing number of senior citizens is a societal task for which a complex sharing of responsibility among public and civil protagonists is required. Based on a thorough exploration of the notorious shortcomings and issues in the elder care system, this socio-ethical research project aims to conceptualize the future organization of professional care services in such a way as to ensure quantitative sufficiency and qualitative adequacy of care as well as fair working conditions for care professionals. Social security options for care professionals and forms and models of personal and institutional cooperation exploiting the potential of digital technology and technical aids in care and are gathered and discussed from a socio-ethical point of view. Pilot projects in Germany will be investigated and an international comparison (Germany, Denmark, Switzerland) will be conducted by means of qualitative research and analysis of scientific literature and documents (grey literature, policies and guiding principles of organizations). The examination and ethical reflection of care structures will be carried out on three sociological levels: institution, organization and interaction. The socio-ethical framework which will be spelled out in this project is based on the theory of recognition and follows a semantics of rights (of the elderly, their families and of care professionals) and justice (regarding distribution, gender, generations, space and international relations). Based on these results, essential normative structures which enable a just organization of care work (“constitutional norms for a caring society”), a set of socio-ethical criteria for the organization of professional elderly care and guidelines for reforms of labor and care policy will be developed.