Although family scholars conceptualize caregiving in terms of networks of carers, little attention has been given to equity within these groups. Siblings comprise a prevalent caregiving network of members who feel responsible for parent care, expect to share these responsibilities with each other, and look to each other to evaluate the fairness of their sharing. In this paper, a multidisciplinary approach is used to examine sibling views of equity in relation to disputes over giving parent care and receiving parent assets. A literary perspective is offered through analysis of stepsibling tensions depicted in the novel Family Matters. Real life disputes among biological siblings that have been pursued through the courts are also examined. Issues arising from these examples are then analysed through the lens of legal doctrines of equity. Siblings evaluating fairness undertake careful comparisons of their respective relationships with parents in terms of biological links to parents and type and extent of influence in interactions with parents.

This article examines the struggle to win lifetime eligibility for selected home care benefits provided through the Veterans Independence Program (VIP) for veterans' widows in recognition of their years of unpaid caregiving – a policy change eventually implemented between 2003 and 2004. It explores how arguments on their behalf shifted from discourses of dependency, cost-saving, and compassion to ones of entitlement and commemoration between 1981 and 2004 as the large cohort of Second World War veterans and their wives moved towards the end of their lives. This policy victory for veterans' widows marked a historic shift in mandate for Veterans Affairs Canada and an important recognition by the state of unpaid caregiving as a form of national service. If Canadians are to learn from this example, however, it must be through seeing all caregiving labour – not just that of veterans' wives – as equally heroic and worthy of compensation.

The growth of research knowledge on culturally diverse family caregivers for the aging population lags behind the increase of culturally diverse populations in Canada. This study examines the effects of culture, as manifested through cultural variables, on the caregiving burden of family caregivers in a Chinese-Canadian community. A random sample of 339 Chinese-Canadian caregivers for elderly relatives completed a telephone survey. Results of hierarchical stepwise multiple regression analysis reported the predicting effects of culture-related variables on caregiving burden. The findings indicated that being an immigrant, having a Western or non-Western religion as compared to having no religion, and having a lower level of filial piety, predicted a higher level of caregiving burden. Chinese tradition does not exempt the caregivers from being burdened. Policies and practices should address the needs of family caregivers according to the intra-cultural variations identified in this study.