Logics of Structuring the Elder Care Arrangements over Time and Their Foundations

Abstract

On the basis of family carers’ perspectives, this article sets out to understand the logics of structuring care arrangements for older people over time, as well as to capture the roots of these logics. The data analyzed was gathered through qualitative research carried out in the Lisbon area. We found that elder care arrangements have been structured over time according to a logic designated by ‘family primacy’, in which family care has precedence over other modes of care provision. However, this logic is put into practice in different forms, associated with different social classes: ‘restrictively’ by family carers belonging to middle classes (they want to have a restricted involvement in care provision) and ‘extensively’ by family carers belonging to working classes (they are willing to have an extensive involvement in care provision). The results also reveal that the logic of ‘family primacy’ is rooted not only on ‘familistic’ values and norms but also on the negative impression family carers have of the quality of other modes of care provision. Lastly, it was also found that some elders agree with the logic of ‘family primacy’, whilst others idealize a slightly different logic (‘conditional family primacy’) which is compatible with the logic of ‘family primacy’, and still others who idealize a very different logic (‘family exclusivity’) which is not compatible with the logic of ‘family primacy’ and consequently could produce serious tensions between the elders and their family carers. It is believed that questioning the ‘hierarchical compensatory model’ proposed by Cantor is one of the contributions of this article.