Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T01:28:53.845Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Politics of Caregiving: The Professionalisation of Informal Care

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 November 2008

John Bond
John Bond
Affiliation:
Centre for Health Services Research, School of Health Care Sciences, The University, 21, Claremont Place, Newcastle upon Tyne NE2 4AA, United Kingdom
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article reviews some of the literature on caregiving from social policy and on professionalisation from sociology. The context of the article is the care of dementia sufferers with particular reference to the role of family and other informal caregivers. The theoretical contributions on informal and formal caregiving have been dominated by the gender order and the professional order to the detriment of other aspects of structure. In the light of these theoretical contributions the article explores the inherent contradiction in society's desire to provide care to dementia sufferers without compromising the position of informal and formal caregivers.

Type
Artilces
Information
Ageing & Society , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , March 1992 , pp. 5 - 21
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abrams, P. 1978. Community care: some research problems and priorities. In J., Barnes and N., Connolly (eds) Social Care Research. Policy Studies Institute and Bedford Square Press, London.Google Scholar
Abrams, P., Abrams, S., Humphrey, R. and Snaith, R. 1989. Neighbourhood Care and Social Policy. HMSO, London.Google Scholar
Anderson, M. 1971. Family Structure in Nineteenth-Century Lancashire. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Arber, S. and Gilbert, G. N. 1989. Transitions in caring: gender, lifecourse and the care of the elderly. In B., Bytheway, T., Keil, P., Allat and A., Bryman (eds) Becoming and Being Old: Social Approaches to Later Lift. Sage, London.Google Scholar
Bayley, M. 1973. Mental Handicap and Community Care: a Study of Mentally Handicapped People in Sheffield. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London.Google Scholar
Beigel, D. E. and Blum, A. 1990. Aging and Caregiving: Theory, Research and Policy. Sage, London.Google Scholar
Bell, C. and Newby, H. 1971. Community Studies: an Introduction to the Sociology of the Local Community. George Allen & Unwin, London.Google Scholar
Berger, P. L. 1977. In praise of particularity: the concept of mediating structures. In Berger, P. L. (ed) Facing up to Modernity: Excursions in Society, Politics and Religion. Basic Books, New York.Google Scholar
Blau, P. 1964. Exchange and Power in Social Lift. Wiley, New York.Google Scholar
Bond, J. 1992. The medicalization of dementia. Journal of Aging Studies. In press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Briggs, A. 1983. Who Cares? Association of Carers, Chatham, Kent.Google Scholar
Bulmer, M. 1986. Neighbours – the Work of Philip Abrams. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Charlesworth, A., Wilkin, D. and Dune, A. 1984. Carers and Services: a Comparison of Men and Women Caring for Dependent Elderly People. Equal Opportunities Commission, Manchester.Google Scholar
Clark, R. and Spengler, J. 1980. Dependency ratios: their use in economic analysis. In Simon, J. and Devanzo, J. (eds) Research in Population Economics, Vol 2. JAI Press, Greenwich, Connecticut.Google Scholar
Commission for Racial Equality 1987. Ethnic Origins of Nurses Applying for and in Training: a Survey. CRE, London.Google Scholar
Commission for Racial Equality 1988. South Manchester District Health Authority: Report of a Formal Investigation. CRE, London.Google Scholar
Davies, B. and Knapp, M. 1987. Matching Resources to Community Needs. Gower, Aldershot.Google Scholar
Department of Health and Social Security 1982. Ageing in the United Kingdom. DHSS, London.Google Scholar
Dingwall, R., Rafferty, A. M. and Webster, C. 1988. An Introduction to the Social History of Nursing. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London.Google Scholar
Donaldson, C. and Gregson, B. A. 1988. Prolonging life at home: what is the cost? Community Medicine, 11, 200–9.Google Scholar
Doyal, L. 1985. Women and the National Health Service: the carers and the careless. In Lewin, E. and Oleson, V. (eds) Women, Health and Healing: Toward a New Perspective. Tavistock, London.Google Scholar
Doyal, L., Hunt, G. and Mellor, J. 1981. Your life in their hands: migrant workers in the National Health Service. Critical Social Policy, 2, 54–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Durkheim, E. 1933. The Division of Labour in Society. Macmillan Education Ltd, London, first published in French in 1893.Google Scholar
Equal Opportunities Commission 1980. The Experience of Caring for Elderly and Handicapped Dependents: Survey Report. EOC, Manchester.Google Scholar
Estes, C. 1979. The Aging Enterprise. Jossey Bass, San Francisco.Google Scholar
Etzioni, A. 1969. The Semi Professions and their Organisation. Free Press, New York.Google Scholar
Evandrou, M., Arber, S., Dale, A. and Gilbert, G. N. 1986. Who cares for the elderly? Family care, provision and receipt of statutory service. In Phillipson, C., Bernard, M. and Strang, P. (eds) Dependency and Interdependency in Old Age: Theoretical Perspectives and Policy Alternatives. Croom Helm, London.Google Scholar
Falkingham, J. 1989. Dependency and ageing in Britain: a re-examination of the evidence. Journal of Social Policy, 18, 211–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Finch, J. 1989. Family Obligations and Social Change. Polity Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Finch, J. and Groves, D. 1980. Community care and the family: a case for equal opportunities? Journal of Social Policy, 9, 487–511.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Finch, J. and Mason, J.Filial obligations and kin support for elderly people. Ageing and Society, 10, 151–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Freidson, E. 1970. Profession of Medicine: A Study of the Sociology of Applied Knowledge. Dodd, Mead & Co, New York.Google Scholar
Godlove, C., Dunn, G. and Wright, H. 1980. Caring for old people in New York and London: the ‘nurses’ aide' interviews. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 73, 713–24.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Goffman, E. 1961. Asylum: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates. Anchor, New York.Google Scholar
Graham, H. 1983. Caring: a labour of love. In Finch, J. and Groves, D. (eds) A Labour of Love: Women, Work and Caring. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London.Google Scholar
Graham, H. 1991. The concept of caring in feminist research: the case of domestic service. Sociology, 25, 61–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Green, H. 1988. Informal Carers. HMSO, London.Google Scholar
Gubrium, H. 1975. Oldtimers and Alzheimer's: The Descriptive Organisalion of Senility. JAI Press, London.Google Scholar
Gubrium, H. and Lynott, R.J. 1987. Measurements and the interpretation of burden in the Alzheimer's disease experience. Journal of Aging Studies, 1, 265–85.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Harper, S. and Lund, D. A. 1990. Wives, husbands and daughters caring for institutionalized and non-institutionalized dementia patients: toward a model of caregiver burden. International Journal of Aging and Human Development, 30, 241–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris, A. I. 1968. Social Welfare for the Elderly: Government Social Survey No. SS 366. HMSO, London.Google Scholar
Hirsch, F. 1977. Social Limits to Growth. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London.Google Scholar
Hughes, E. C. 1958. Men and Their Work. Free Press, Glencoe, Illinois.Google Scholar
Hunt, A. 1978. The Elderly at Home: A Study of People aged 65 and over Living in the Community in England in 1976. OPCS, London.Google Scholar
Johnson, M. L. 1990. Dependency and interdependency. In Bond, J. and Coleman, P. (eds) Ageing in Society. Sage, London.Google Scholar
Jorm, A. F., Korten, A. E. and Henderson, A. S. 1987. The prevalence of dementia: a quantitative integration of the literature. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 76, 465–79.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kings Fund 1990. Racial Equality: the Nursing Profession. Equal Opportunities Task Force Occasional Paper No. 6. Kings Fund, London.Google Scholar
Land, H. 1978. Who cares for the family? Journal of Social Policy, 7, 257–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levin, E., Sinclair, I. and Gorbach, P. 1989. Families, Services and Confusion in Old Age. Avebury, Aldershot.Google Scholar
Lyman, K. A. 1989. Infantilization of elders: day care for Alzheimer's disease victims. In Wertz, P. (ed) Research in the Sociology of Health Care, Vol 7. JAI Press, Greenwich, Connecticut.Google Scholar
Lyman, K. A. 1989. Bringing the social back in: a critique of the biomedicalisation of dementia. The Gerontologist, 29, 597–605.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Malinowski, B. 1922. Argonauts of the Western Pacific. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London.Google Scholar
Martin, J., Meltzer, H. and Elliot, D. 1988. Office of Population Censuses and Surveys Disability Surveys, Report I: The Prevalence of Disability among Adults. HMSO, London.Google Scholar
Mauss, M. 1925. The Gift. Cohen & West (1966, English translation).Google Scholar
Melia, K. 1987. Learning and Working. The Occupational Socialisation of Nurses. Tavistock, London.Google Scholar
Ory, M. G. and Bond, K. 1988. Aging and Health Care: Social Science and Policy Perspectives. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London.Google Scholar
Parker, G. 1990. With Due Care and Attention: a Review of Research on Informal Care, 2nd edition. Family Policy Studies Centre, London.Google Scholar
Parsons, T. 1939. The professions and the social structure. Social Forces, 17, 457–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pearson, M., Torkington, P., Cole, A. and Renn, M. 1987. Racism: the great divide. Nursing Times, 83, 25–31.Google ScholarPubMed
Pratt, H. J. 1976. The Politics of Old Age. University of Chicago, Chicago.Google Scholar
Qureshi, H. 1990. Boundaries between formal and informal care-giving work. In Ungerson, C. (ed) Gender and Caring. Work and Welfare in Britain and Scandinavia. Harvester Wheatsheaf, London.Google Scholar
Qureshi, H., Challis, D. and Davies, B. 1983. Motivations and rewards of helpers in the Kent Community Care Scheme. In Hatch, S. (ed) Volunteers: Patterns, Meanings and Motives. Policy Studies Institute, London.Google Scholar
Qureshi, H. and Walker, A. 1989. The Caring Relationship: Elderly People and Their Families. Macmillan Education Ltd, London.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Report of the Royal College of Physicians by the College Committee of Geriatrics. 1981. Organic mental impairment in the elderly. Implications for research, education and the provision of services. Journal of the Royal College of Physicians of London, 15, 141–67.Google Scholar
Sinclair, I. 1990. The Kaleidoscope of Care. a Review of Research on Welfare Provision for Elderly People. London, HMSO.Google Scholar
Strauss, A. L. 1975. Chronic Illness and the Quality of Life. C. V. Mosby Co., St Louis.Google Scholar
Strauss, R. R. 1957. The nature and status of medical sociology. American Sociological Review, 22, 200–4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Titmuss, R. M. 1970. The G!ft Relationship: From Human Blood to Social Policy. Allen & Unwin, London.Google Scholar
Townsend, P. 1962. The Last Refuge: A Survey of Residential Institutions and Homes for the Aged in England and Wales. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London.Google Scholar
Townsend, P. 1981. The structural dependency of the elderly: creation of social policy in the twentieth century. Ageing and Society, 1, 5–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Townsend, P. 1986. Ageism and social policy. In Phillipson, C. and Walker, A. (eds) Ageing and Social Policy. Gower, Aldershot.Google Scholar
Turner, B. S. 1987. Medical Power and Social Knowledge. Sage, London.Google Scholar
Twigg, J. 1989. Models of carers: how do social care agencies conceptualise their relationship with informal carers? Journal of Social Policy, 18, 53–66.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ungerson, C. 1983. Why do women care? In Finch, J. and Groves, D. (eds) A Labour of Love: Women, Work and Caring. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London.Google Scholar
Ungerson, C. 1987. Policy is Personal: Sex, Gender and Informal Care. Tavistock, London.Google Scholar
Walker, A. 1980. The social creation of poverty and dependence in old age. Journal of Social Policy, 9, 49–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walker, A. 1981. Towards a political economy of old age. Ageing and Society, 1, 73–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walker, A. 1982a (ed) Community Care: the Family, the State and Social Policy. Blackwell/Martin Robertson, Oxford.Google Scholar
Walker, A. 1982b Dependency and old age. Social Policy and Administration, 16, 115–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wenger, G. C. 1984. The Supportive Yetwork. Allen & Unwin, London.Google Scholar
Wilkin, D. 1987. Conceptual problems in dependency research. Social Science and Medicine, 24, 867–73.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zola, I. K. 1972. Medicine as an institution of social control. Sociological Review, 20, 487–504.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed