Abstract

Concerns have been raised for a number of years now, about the supply of workers in the aged care industry. Research in this area needs to consider broad economic, political and social conditions and the place of individual decisions made by potential employees: as such, it is a particular example of the more general area of interdisciplinary research which seeks to link macro level and micro level social phenomena. Inter-generational relationships are particularly salient in this case which presents the opportunity to contribute to discussion about social sustainability. This article identifies some challenges raised by research into aged care workforce questions, describes the theoretical approach used by the author in his doctoral research and addresses the challenges raised by reference to the principles of engaged social research.