Allocating Family Responsibilities for Dependent Older People in Mexico and Peru

This paper applies different analytical frameworks to explore processes of family bargaining about providing care for dependent older people in Mexico and Peru. These frameworks include cultural norms, life course effects and material exchange. The paper is based on 19 in-depth qualitative family case studies, which are linked to a wider set of quantitative survey data. Care arrangements and bargaining processes are revealed to be highly gendered, and largely conform to prevailing cultural norms. Rather than neutral and objective, the self-identified role as main carer is found to be subjective and potentially ambiguous. The few men who self-identify as main carers are more likely to play an indirect, organisational role than engage directly in daily care. As such, bargaining mainly relates to which woman performs the main care role, and large family networks mean that there is usually more than one candidate carer. Bargaining can occur inter-generationally and conjugally, but bargaining between siblings is of particular importance. Bargaining is framed by the uncertain trajectory of older people’s care needs, and arrangements are sometimes reconfigured in response to changing care needs or family circumstances. Taking the narratives at face value, the influence of life course effects on bargaining and care arrangements is more obvious than material exchange. There are, however, indications that economic considerations, particularly inheritance, still play an important behind the scenes role

Care and the 53rd Commission on the Status of Women: a transformative policy space?

In March 2009, UN member states met at the 53rd Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) to discuss the priority theme of "the equal sharing of responsibilities between women and men, including caregiving in the context of HIV/AIDS". This meeting focused the international community's attention on care issues and generated Agreed Conclusions that aimed to lay out a roadmap for care policy. I examine how the frame of "care" - a contested concept that has long divided feminist researchers and activists - operated in this site. Research involved a review of documentation related to the meeting and interviews with 18 participants. Using this research I argue that the frame of care united a range of groups, including conservative faith-based actors who have mobilized within the UN to roll back sexual and reproductive rights. This policy alliance led to important advances in the Agreed Conclusions, including strong arguments about the global significance of care, especially in relation to HIV; the need for a strong state role; and the value of caregivers' participation in policy debates. However, the care frame also constrained debate at the CSW, particularly about disability rights and variations in family formation. Those seeking to reassert sexual and reproductive rights are grappling with such limitations in a range of ways, and attention to their efforts and concerns can help us better understand the potentials and dangers for feminist intervention within global policy spaces.</p