Examining the impacts of emerging technologies on the aged care workforce: Towards a sustainable and ethical future of care workers

High-income societies face a care crisis characterized by worker shortages, growing demand and poor working conditions that fall below SDG standards for “decent work”. Despite the importance of workers in addressing this crisis, care technology innovations tend to prioritize care receivers and neglect care workers. This project advocates for innovation in care technology to improve care workers’ conditions and wellbeing. Applying sociotechnical and ethical lenses, we examine the impacts of emerging technologies on the care workforce and identify ethical and social issues. As a result, the project produces principles and frameworks to guide the design of technologies, services and policies, fostering a more sustainable and ethical care workforce future. Integral to this process are co-design methods that involve diverse perspectives from the care, technology and policy sectors to understand sociotechnical systems that shape technologies in use and the workplace.

This project addresses the care crisis where there's a shortage of workers and poor working conditions. We're interested in how technologies could enhance care workers’ conditions and wellbeing. To achieve this goal, we intend to engage diverse stakeholders from technology, care and policy sectors to collaboratively examine how new technologies would impact the aged care workforce. From these co-design activities, we then identify key ethical and social issues and concerns, and suggest design principles for the innovation of technologies, services and policies, thereby paving the way for a more sustainable and ethical future for care workers.