Revaluation of Essential Work: The Example of Elderly Care in Germany

ABSTRACT This article is about how labour in a sector can be upgraded through new labour market institutions by mobilizing political support across political camps, even if collective bargaining power through strong trade unions and employers' associations is insufficient. The article summarizes the results of several empirical research projects by the two authors on elderly care, in which the key players in the sector were interviewed. Institutional erosion in labour relations, with its particularly dynamic ‘force field’, is a key topic of recent institutional theories. In contrast, the analysis of the revitalization of successful institutional innovations for the upgrading of work plays a subordinate role. The field of elderly care in Germany is an example of the successful upgrading of key workers in this market‐oriented sector through a deliberate institutional change in the German industrial relations system.