La feminización de la sobrecarga: cuidados no- remunerados, relaciones familiares y envejecimiento en Peñalolén (Chile)

Abstract

This article presents an anthropological study with a feminist focus on the unpaid care work done by older people in the district of Peñalolén (Metropolitan Region, Chile). Thirty-two qualitative interviews were conducted with men and women aged sixty and over with the aim of finding out what chores they do when looking after, in particular, their familiy members. The findings show that older women have an overload when it comes to care work and that their activities sustain different aspects of their relatives’ lives. These women appear to be caught “in the middle,” trapped between different generations and distinct ways of doing paid and unpaid work. At the same time, older men tend only to take on care work when their partner is not in a position to do so; rather, they undertake more specific ways of providing (such as offering material and economic resources to their children and grandchildren).