RESTRUCTURING LONG-TERM-CARE AND THE GEOGRAPHY OF AGING - A VIEW FROMRURAL NEW-ZEALAND

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.