All in a Day’s Work

Liz Kiata’s recently completed doctoral thesis ‘All in a day’s work: The lifeworld of older people in New Zealand rest homes’ contributes to critical gerontology research by investigating the lived experiences of residents in the everyday world of rest homes. There is a need to understand how frail residents experience ‘age’ and the study adds clarity through elders lived experiences about being aged in rest homes.

Policy initiatives, such as the Positive Ageing Strategy with its emphasis on keeping older people living the community, largely ignore the life practices of the increasing proportions of frail older people who require long-term residential care. Supplementing and back-grounding interviews with 27 residents are descriptive data, including written interview summaries and survey findings about the relationships and pastimes of 352 residents living in 21 rest homes in two New Zealand cities.

The residents day-to-day use of rest home space, mediated time, self-managed bodies and minds, and negotiated relationships are interpreted. The mythology of the misery of rest home life is challenged, and a more constructive critical gerontology approach is offered.

Findings of this research reveal how meanings around daily work practices are constructed by the residents. These elders participate in daily rest home life, from the sidelines or not at all, as they choose or are able, and this always involves work for the residents. They continue to actively manage satisfactory and fulfilling pastimes and relationships, because in their ordinary, everyday lifeworld it is “all in a day’s work”. Liz’s thesis/dissertation can be viewed online at the University of Auckland Library.

Liz Kiata

PhD Honorary Researcher, General Practice & Primary Health Care, School of Population Health, Auckland