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

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.