Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology Online

Extract

Caregiving is the act of providing unpaid assistance and support to family members or acquaintances who have physical, psychological, or developmental needs. Caring for others generally takes on three forms: instrumental, emotional, and informational caring. Instrumental help includes activities such as shopping for someone who is disabled or cleaning for an elderly parent. Caregiving also involves a great deal of emotional support, which may include listening, counseling, and companionship. Finally, part of caring for others may be informational in nature, such as learning how to alter the living environment of someone in the first stages of dementia.Sociologists generally limit their discussion of caregiving to unpaid workers. Caregivers are typically family members, friends, and neighbors. Sometimes caregiving is done by those affiliated with religious institutions. While caregiving of all types is also done by paid workers such as nurses, social workers, and counselors, this is paid work, and thus is not in the same category. Caregiving rarely refers to the daily care that parents provide for their children, because this is classified as parenting; however, caring for an adult disabled daughter would be considered caregiving because it is outside of the norm of expectations for older adults.Recently, sociologists have begun to use the term carework rather than caregiving. Carework ... log in or subscribe to read full text