Although domestic work scholarship in Canada has focused primarily on the immigration/migration and labour experiences of domestic workers under the Foreign Domestic Movement and the Live-in-Caregiver Program, research is scarce on how these workers retire and consequently age in Canadian society. This article focuses on the aging experiences of retired Filipino domestic workers who, upon entering retirement, find themselves working in the secondary and/or underground economy while providing and receiving care from spouses, grandchildren, and local/transnational family members. Data were drawn from six qualitative, in-depth interviews with older Filipina domestic workers who discussed experiences of immigration, caring labour, retirement, and aging. Findings underscore (1) the poverty that older Filipino domestic workers encounter as they approach their retirement; (2) the necessity but insufficiency of the state’s retirement provisions; (3) the need to find work in the unreported labour market; and (4) how caring labour is provided intergenerationally as a survival strategy.

Elderly people with functional limitations are predominantly cared for by family members. Women – spouses and daughters – provide most of this care work. In principle, gender inequality in intergenerational care may have three causes: first, daughters and sons have different resources to provide care; second, daughters and sons respond differently to the same resources; third, welfare state programmes and cultural norms affect daughters and sons differently. In this paper, we address the empirical question whether these three assumed causes are in fact responsible for gender differences in intergenerational care. The empirical analyses, based on the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), reveal that parents in need are in fact more likely to receive care from daughters than from sons. Daughters are more responsive to the needs of their parents than sons and respond differently to the same resources. Gender inequality is highest in countries with a high level of intergenerational care, high public spending on old-age cash-benefits, a low provision of professional care services, high family obligation norms and a high level of gendered division of labour. Welfare state programmes reduce or increase gender inequality in intergenerational care by reducing or increasing the engagement of daughters in intergenerational care. In general, care-giving by sons is hardly influenced by social care policies.

A key feature of population ageing in Europe and other more economically developed countries is the projected unprecedented rise in need for long-term care in the next two decades. There is, however, considerable uncertainty over the future supply of unpaid care for older people by their adult children. The future of family care is particularly important in countries planning to reform their long-term care systems, as is the case in England. This article makes new projections of the supply of intense unpaid care for parents aged 65 and over in England to 2032, and compares these projections with existing projections of demand for unpaid care by older people with disabilities from their children. The results show that the supply of unpaid care to older people with disabilities by their adult children in England is unlikely to keep pace with demand in future. By 2032, there is projected to be a shortfall of 160,000 care-givers in England. Demand for unpaid care will begin to exceed supply by 2017 and the unpaid ‘care gap’ will grow rapidly from then onwards. The article concludes by examining how far this unpaid ‘care gap’ is likely to be met by other sources of unpaid care or by developments in new technology and examines the implications of the findings for long-term care policy.

This paper is concerned with the issue of substitution between formal and informal care in Britain between 1985 and 2000. This period provides the conditions for a ‘natural experiment’ in social policy. During the late 1980s/early 1990s, there was an increase in long-stay residential care for older people, which came to an end around the mid-1990s. The paper examines whether this increase in formal services led to a decline in informal care, and whether this was subsequently reversed. The focus is on provision of intense informal care by adult children to their older parents, trends in which are identified using General Household Survey data. The paper shows that there was a decline in provision of intense and very intense co-resident care for older parents between 1985 and 1995, which came to an end in the mid-1990s. These trends in intergenerational care were negatively related to changes in long-stay residential care. In particular, controlling for age and disability, there was evidence of substitution between nursing home/hospital care and very intense co-resident care for older parents. A key policy implication is that an expansion of very intense formal services for older people could bring about a decline in very intense intergenerational care. The paper relates these findings to the current debate on reform of the long-term care system in England.