Warm Hands in Cold Age – On the Need of a New World Order of Care

Abstract

The world is aging as fertility and mortality are both decreasing. This article focuses on practical care work for the elderly. Such work is done primarily by women even though a larger portion than previously is paid rather than unpaid. All over the world, most elderly care work is organized within the family, most often unpaid. Men receive more care from partners than women, while women receive more care from female relatives. When care work is paid, the payment is generally low. A comparison between Germany, Spain, and Sweden demonstrates similar gender patterns, even though the role of the state in supporting care differs considerably as do care workers' conditions. The sustainability of today's distribution and organization of care work is questioned as the need for care increases, and the possibility of more equal sharing of care work between women and men is explored.

Keywords:

• Elder care work
• unpaid work
• care insurance
• Germany
• Spain
• Sweden

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I thank Nancy Folbre and Lois Shaw for their many thoughtful comments and suggestions and a number of participants in IAFFE conferences and other readers for comments on earlier parts and versions of this work.

Notes

JEL Codes: J14, I38, J16

David R. Phillips (2002: 43) mentions China, Japan, and Singapore – countries in which filial piety has an important role – where a single child potentially may have responsibility for up to six direct adult relatives (parents and grandparents).

In nineteen countries, the rate is below 1.3. Population change patterns are sometimes described in terms of crises and in violent metaphors: “population explosion,” “the aging bomb.” Such metaphors seem misleading, since aging on an individual as well as to some extent on a societal level is a comparatively slow and steady process. It should also be noted that a population unchanged in size should not be seen as a goal in itself, just as growing or diminishing populations are not necessarily good or bad.

See for instance, Angelika Hensolt (2002: 6).

It should be noted that the mean age for a woman giving birth for the first time at the turn of the millennium was almost two years younger; in Sweden marriage often comes after a period of cohabitation, and after the birth of at least a first child.

These organizations are in alphabetical order here, and the order does not reflect any normative view.

This view of the market is shared by Julie A. Nelson and Paula England (2002).

The issue of commodification or decommodification of care work will not be discussed here, as the definition of care work used does not necessitate any specific distinction between market-organized work on the one hand and work organized by the other institutions on the other.

Cases are reported in which the elderly person designates a carer, especially a spouse, without asking that person first (Stark and Regnér 2002: 155).

However, it is not unusual that compensation for expenses is paid, for example, for transportation in connection to the work.

“Consequently there is an attempt at getting the social ‘Ehrenamt’ accepted as a compromise between privatization in the family and professionalization (as the most far-reaching process of socialization)” (Backes 1987: 101, italics in the original); (“Folglich wird soziales Ehrenamt als Kompromiss zwischen familialer Privatisierung und Verberuflichung (als weitgehendste Vergesellschaftung) durchzusetzen versucht”).

In the political debate 2000 on recruiting labor abroad, the Christian Democrats used the slogan “Kinder statt Inder” (Children instead of Indian people) to promote support for families with children instead to solve the labor shortage. The slogan was quickly withdrawn after criticism that it fueled hostility towards immigrants.

This is certainly not a phenomenon only, or even mainly, connected to policy responses to aging populations.

It should be noted that Japanese labor market hours per person have shortened considerably since 1990.

A representative age-stratified sample of 6,016 people aged 25 and older, living in the community (not institutions) in urban areas, and in each country 400 people aged 75 or older and 800 from ages 25 to 74 years were interviewed.

This connects to existing patterns: older women have long lived with other older women, as relatives, sisters, and friends.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Agneta Stark

JEL Codes: J14, I38, J16