Labour of love

: the impact of emotional labour on domestic abuse support workers

Abstract

The contentious subject of domestic abuse continues to be a concern within society. From the 1970’s the response to domestic abuse grew in response to the second wave of feminists and in response to this the introduction of support for victims of domestic abuse was created.

Nowadays, there is still support needed, if not more, due to the legislation changes which made domestic abuse a crime. These events have led to more women seeking support for domestic abuse..

Although there is an abundance of literature and research written about domestic abuse there is not anything written about the support workers and the effect the work has on their well-being, they are somewhat invisible.

Therefore, my aim is to fill the gap between Hochschild’s theory of emotional labour and the effect this has on domestic abuse support workers (1983). Emotional labour is a theory which addresses the emotional work of employment and how this affects the individual employee. This requires behaviours surrounding emotions to be managed effectively to deliver the service they are employed to do; this is a must for human services to be effectively delivered. Emotional labour has been used in many fields but not to consider if this affects domestic abuse support workers. The data was collected by conducting semi-structured interviews with ten current support workers from various Women’s Aid agencies in Scotland. My research findings indicate that support workers are impacted by emotional labour, yet the worker's age and experience make a difference to their well-being. The more mature workers manage the impact of emotional labour better than their younger, less experienced counterparts who struggle with the emotional aspects of their work. Findings call for an increase in funding for the charity which would provide more support staff.

Date of Award	27 Oct 2023
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Abertay University
Supervisor	Donncha Marron (Supervisor) & William Graham (Supervisor)