Ae. Joseph et Ail. Chalmers, RESTRUCTURING LONG-TERM-CARE AND THE GEOGRAPHY OF AGING - A VIEW FROMRURAL NEW-ZEALAND, Social science & medicine, 42(6), 1996, pp. 887-896
Citations number
29
Categorie Soggetti
Social Sciences, Biomedical","Public, Environmental & Occupation Heath
This paper examines the major points of contact between the restructur
ing of long-term care and the evolving geography of the elderly in the
Waikato, one of New Zealand's agricultural heartlands. The time frame
of the study is 1981-91, a decade in which new Zealand embarked on a
sweeping program of service restructuring and privatization. Comparati
ve analysis of data on the evolving distribution of the elderly and on
the shifting supply of lone-term care beds reveals that restructuring
has sharpened contrasts between urban and rural contexts for ageing.
Almost all the urban centres in the Waikato benefited from an expansio
n of long-term care driven by private-sector initiatives, while rural
communities suffered a broad-based depletion of services. However, the
data indicate that, contrary to the trend in long-term care, more old
er elderly people (defined as those aged 80 or older) are 'staying on'
in rural communities. The paper concludes with a consideration of eme
rgent policy issues; we speculate that it through the aggregate outcom
es of decisions to 'stay on' that the personal troubles of the elderly
residents of service-depleted communities may yet become an important
policy issue in rural New Zealand.