By 2030 it is estimated there will be over 1 million carers aged 65-74 years, double the number in 2001. The current debates about raising the pension age rarely mentions them, so Madeleine Bunting’s article (Who will care for us in future?, 7 March) is very timely. Yet not only has “hard-working family” replaced “male breadwinner family”, thus rendering care even less visible than in a family wage model, but public policies overall take less account of the lives and needs of both givers and receivers of care.
An ethic of care is necessary not only in formal care and health services. For example 40 years ago most primary school children walked to school unaccompanied by an adult. The priority given to the private car in transport and planning policies has since made young children more dependent on their parents, who must either manage the resulting constraints on their now longer working day or involve members of the older generation. Current housing policies are forcing family members to live further apart from each other as well as from their place of employment. Children are less welcome in public spaces outside the home; parks are being sold off to developers and the use of remaining parks is being commercialised.
Continue reading...via Robots are no answer to the looming care crisis | Letters
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