This article explores the care that husbands in Accra, Ghana, provide for wives who have been diagnosed with cancer. Making use of an inductive, qualitative approach, the study analyzes observations of and in-depth ethnographic interviews conducted with five married female cancer patients and their husbands over a ten-month period. The results suggest a strong association among husbands’ care, wives’ responses to husbands’ care, and cultural ideals of femininity and masculinity. The findings suggest that husbands’ selective and often limited gender-based investments in unpaid care work make their sick wives exceedingly vulnerable in a context in which care for the terminally ill takes place predominately in familial settings.

The purpose of this article is to investigate the relationship between spousal care-giving and declines in functioning and self-rated health among older care-givers. The authors used data from the 2000 and 2002 waves of the United States Health and Retirement Study, a biennial longitudinal survey of a nationally representative cohort of adults aged 50 or more years. Two outcomes were examined, declines in functioning and declines in self-rated health. Care-givers were classified into three groups: no care-giving, less than 14 hours of care-giving per week, and 14 or more hours care-giving per week. To assess declines in functioning, two summary scores were created of limitations in basic and instrumental Activities of Daily Living. To assess declines in self-rated health, we compared responses from 2000 and 2002. In the fully adjusted models, care-giving hours did not have an independent effect on declines in functioning or self-rated health. The relationship between care-giving hours and declines in functioning and self-rated health is probably attributable to socio-demographic characteristics, mainly age. The findings suggest that spousal care-giving does not of itself harm functional health or perceived health among older adult care-givers. Understanding the differential effects of these socio-economic characteristics with care-giving hours on health will be useful in promoting the health of older adult care-givers and treating their disorders.