Eldercare as “Woman's Work” in Poor Countries

Abstract

This article explores gender and eldercare by examining four issues concerning the activities of women giving and receiving eldercare: (a) the need for an ethnographic and comparative focus; (b) some important differences between poor and rich countries in the structure of eldercare and in eldercare roles for women; (c) continuity and change in the role of women as caregivers and care receivers, women empowered and women in need; and (d) family structures for eldercare focusing on the tensions surrounding cultural principles and circumstances governing caregiver selection. The discussion calls for more research concerning the actual and potential roles of both women and men in eldercare. Women who provide eldercare in most poor countries would benefit from extrafamilial health care, services, and material resources that alleviate poverty as well as from improved education, whereas men in most countries will continue to avoid eldercare as long as it is regarded as “woman's work.”