IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v46y1998i6p631-639.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Over the hill and far away: distance as a barrier to the provision of assistance to elderly relatives

Author

Listed:
  • Joseph, Alun E.
  • Hallman, Bonnie C.

Abstract

This paper considers the impact of the distance between employed caregivers and their elderly relatives on the provision of various forms of family-based assistance ("eldercare"), and in so doing it contributes to two overlapping literatures, one on the geography of care for elderly persons and the other on eldercare as a "work and family" issue. The paper also seeks to interpret and understand the spatiality of eldercare in light of evolving public policy on the care of dependent populations, and does so with an eye to the highly gendered nature of family caregiving. The empirical portion of the paper draws on a national survey of work and family conducted by CARNET (The Canadian Aging Research Network). Analysis of data for 1149 respondents with eldercare responsibilities reveals significant distance-decay effects in the average (weekly) number of hours devoted to eldercare. However, disaggregation by gender reveals that only male caregivers display this normative behaviour. Analysis of the average time-distances at which particular types of assistance are provided reveals a similar "gender gap"--women are willing to travel farther, more often, than male caregivers. The results suggest that the reconceptualization of aging as a "private" problem, to be attended to (by women) in the family and community, will particularly affect the careers and family lives of female caregivers, for they are more likely than their male counterparts to take on more travel and try to squeeze more into already tight time budgets.

Suggested Citation

  • Joseph, Alun E. & Hallman, Bonnie C., 1998. "Over the hill and far away: distance as a barrier to the provision of assistance to elderly relatives," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 46(6), pages 631-639, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:46:y:1998:i:6:p:631-639
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(97)00181-0
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. John Ermisch & Clara H. Mulder, 2019. "Migration Versus Immobility, and Ties to Parents," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 35(3), pages 587-608, July.
    2. Andrews, Gavin J. & Cutchin, Malcolm & McCracken, Kevin & Phillips, David R. & Wiles, Janine, 2007. "Geographical Gerontology: The constitution of a discipline," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 151-168, July.
    3. Annika Smits, 2010. "Moving close to parents and adult children in the Netherlands: the influence of support needs," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 22(31), pages 985-1014.
    4. Tatjana Fischer & Markus Jobst, 2020. "Capturing the Spatial Relatedness of Long-Distance Caregiving: A Mixed-Methods Approach," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(17), pages 1-23, September.
    5. Panelli, Ruth & Gallagher, Lou & Kearns, Robin, 2006. "Access to rural health services: Research as community action and policy critique," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 62(5), pages 1103-1114, March.
    6. Bei, Eva & Morrison, Val & Zarzycki, Mikołaj & Vilchinsky, Noa, 2023. "Barriers, facilitators, and motives to provide distance care, and the consequences for distance caregivers: A mixed-methods systematic review," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 321(C).
    7. Rachel V. Herron & Nancy E. G. Newall & Breanna C. Lawrence & Doug Ramsey & Candice M. Waddell & Jennifer Dauphinais, 2021. "Conversations in Times of Isolation: Exploring Rural-Dwelling Older Adults’ Experiences of Isolation and Loneliness during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Manitoba, Canada," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(6), pages 1-14, March.
    8. Choi, Hye Jung & LeBlanc, Marissa & Moger, Tron Anders & Valberg, Morten & Aamodt, Geir & Page, Christian M. & Tell, Grethe S. & Næss, Øyvind, 2022. "Stroke survival and the impact of geographic proximity to family members: A population-based cohort study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 309(C).
    9. Amy Spring & Elizabeth Ackert & Kyle Crowder & Scott J. South, 2017. "Influence of Proximity to Kin on Residential Mobility and Destination Choice: Examining Local Movers in Metropolitan Areas," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 54(4), pages 1277-1304, August.
    10. Adrian J Bailey & Megan K Blake & Thomas J Cooke, 2004. "Migration, Care, and the Linked Lives of Dual-Earner Households," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 36(9), pages 1617-1632, September.
    11. Gunnar Malmberg & Anna Pettersson, 2007. "Distance to old parents," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 17(23), pages 679-704.
    12. HwaJung Choi & Robert Schoeni & Hongwei Xu & Adriana Reyes & Deena Thomas, 2021. "Proximity to mother over the life course in the United States: Overall patterns and racial differences," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 45(23), pages 769-806.
    13. Schoeni, Robert F. & Cho, Tsai-Chin & Choi, HwaJung, 2022. "Close enough? Adult child-to-parent caregiving and residential proximity," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 292(C).
    14. Riko Kawashita & Haruka Kato, 2024. "Mental Health and Parent–Child Residential Distance for Older People: Cross-Sectional Study Using a Comprehensive Survey of Living Conditions in Japan," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(5), pages 1-12, February.
    15. Skinner, Mark W. & Yantzi, Nicole M. & Rosenberg, Mark W., 2009. "Neither rain nor hail nor sleet nor snow: Provider perspectives on the challenges of weather for home and community care," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 68(4), pages 682-688, February.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:46:y:1998:i:6:p:631-639. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.