A Caring Profession? The Ethics of Care and Social Work with Older People

The feminist ethics of care present a challenge to social workersto re-assess not only the place of care within professionalsocial work practice but also the way in which concepts of justice,autonomy and rights are conceptualized and ageing is understood.In this article, the arguments for an ethics of care are consideredin relation to social work practice with older people. It isargued that the feminist ethics of care offer useful insightsthat are relevant to the practice of social work, particularlywithin contemporary demographic, economic, political and organizationalcontexts, all of which have made the task more complex and confusing.