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 careg ivers and their elderly relatives on the provision of various forms of family-based assistance (''eldercare''), and in so doing it contribut es to two overlapping literatures, one on the geography of care for el derly persons and the other on eldercare as a ''work and family'' issu e. 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 natio nal survey of work and family conducted by GARNET (The Canadian Aging Research Network). Analysis of data for 1149 respondents with eldercar e responsibilities reveals significant distance-decay effects in the a verage (weekly) number of hours devoted to eldercare. However, disaggr egation by gender reveals that only male caregivers display this norma tive behaviour. Analysis of the average time-distances at which partic ular 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 ''pri vate'' problem, to be attended to (by women) in the family and communi ty, will particularly affect the careers and family lives of female ca regivers, for they are more likely than their male counterparts to tak e on more travel and try to squeeze more into already tight time budge ts. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.