Politicising and gendering care for older people : Multidisciplinary perspectives from Europe

Abstract

This book offers a new analytical framework for the multi-layered processes of politicising and gendering care for older people, understood as an inherently political and gendered condition of human existence. It brings together contributions that focus on different manifestations and interpretations of these processes in several European settings and at various societal and political levels. It investigates how care for older adults varies across time and place and aims to provide an in-depth comprehension of how it becomes an arena of political struggle and the object of public policy and political intervention. The book comprises multidisciplinary research stemming from gender studies, history, political science, public policy, social anthropology, social work, and sociology. These analyses examine the issue of care for older people as a political concern from many angles, such as problematising care needs, long-term care policies, home care services, institutional services, and family care. The book’s contributions reveal the diversity of situations in which the processes of politicising and gendering care for older adults overlap, contradict, or reinforce each other while leading to increased gender (in)equalities on different levels – familial, professional, and societal. Both caring for older adults or being taken care of when becoming old(er) or frail are potentially a feature of any personal trajectory, which is always contextually situated. Therefore, this book is an invitation to reflect upon care for older people as an issue particularly significant at any time and relevant at any societal level or socio-political sphere.