PhD Fellowship as part of the research project ‘Workplace Well-being in Elder Care for Women in Midlife: From Ideas to Practice’ (WELLCARE), Roskilde

Fuld tid

Roskilde Universitet (RUC)

Section of Health and Society, Roskilde University is inviting applications for one three-year PhD scholarship commencing 1 December 2026. We are looking for a PhD candidate with a background in sociology, anthropology, critical health studies, or related fields and preferably with experience in ethnography and participatory methods who is motivated to undertake doctoral research as part of a collaborative project on workplace well-being in elder care (WELLCARE) funded by the Working Environment Research Fund (AMFF).

Description of the PhD project
Within the context of ageing societies and an increasingly strained elder care sector, WELLCARE investigates workplace well-being in elder care. The project applies a systemic perspective that shifts the focus from individual, reactive initiatives targeting care workers towards collective, preventive initiatives aimed at relationships, work practices and structural conditions. Through an ethnographic study that takes institutional conditions into account, WELLCARE investigates the relationship – and potential discrepances – between working conditions and the professional, ethical, and health-related demands placed on care workers in their everyday practice. The project has a focus on three main organizational models in Danish elder care, representing different care settings. These settings comprise home-based care, nursing home care, and care for older adults in a geriatric ward at hospital. WELLCARE will place particular emphasis on women in midlife, given their central role in providing direct day-to-day elder care and being in a unique stage of life with challenges of balancing work, women’s health, and caregiving responsibilities outside the workplace. Ultimately, WELLCARE aims to contribute both to the further theorization of the dynamics of positive and negative (moral) stress in elder care work and to development of concrete workplace strategies and practices that can strengthen workplace well-being and prevent psychosocial strain in elder care work.

The PhD candidate is expected to undertake an independent research project aligned with the overall research agenda of WELLCARE. The candidate will conduct a mapping of workplace well-being experiences and existing workplace strategies building on insights from institutional ethnography (Smith, 2005) across the project’s three care settings. This will be followed by a participatory action research phase drawing on inspiration from future workshops (Jungk & Müllert, 1987). Each case study in the three settings will also include individual key informant interviews with care leaders closely related to care practice and focus group interviews with care workers to explore their experiences and perceptions of positive and negative (moral) stress and strain, as well as their coping strategies in relation to professional competence, care work experiences, health and social class. The candidate will then take a leading role in piloting selected workplace interventions in close cooperation with the project’s partners, Nyborg municipality and Odense University Hospital, which provide access to the study’s empirical field. A key aspect of the study is to translate theoretical insights into preventive practices that strengthen workplace well-being in elder care through enhanced resonance between working conditions and work requirements.

Applicants are expected to outline a proposed research design for the PhD study as part of the application (see details below). The proposed PhD project should allow the PhD candidate to explore workplace well-being from a subjective, organizational and societal perspective, using a critical perspective and preferably engage in current sociological and anthropological discussions of care work, gender, and ageing societies. The project should fall within the general framework of institutional ethnography and participatory action research. We welcome projects including participant observations, qualitative interviews, document analyses and participatory methods for co-operation with the care workers, leaders, older adults, and organizations involved. Theoretically, the project should contribute to the host project’s understanding of potential conflicts between working conditions and care work requirements in terms of moral stress and other relevant theoretical frameworks with potentials of conceptualizing workplace well-being of care workers in elder care. The project should contribute to suggesting and assessing selected preventive collective practices strengthening workplace well-being.

The PhD thesis can take the form of a monograph, or it can be a compilation of articles, depending on the nature of the proposed project and the preferences of the successful candidate. The specific focus and details of the project will be decided in collaboration with project PI and co-PI Professor Dorthe Susanne Nielsen, based on the ideas presented in the PhD project description and the overall research interests of the WELLCARE project. The PhD student will be supervised by Professor Karen Christensen and co-supervised by Associate Professor Anne Liveng.

The project is led by Professor Karen Christensen (PI).

The Doctoral School
You will be enrolled as a PhD student at the Department of People and Technology, Roskilde University.

The Doctoral School for People and Technology frames research that seek to address sustainability often by applying experimental approaches and situating the individuals active and learning involvement. The research comprises approaches of a human, societal, health and information technological character and often applying planning, interventions and design-oriented subject areas.