What we owe older people: who should provide care and how much care should they provide
Lead Research Organisation:
Queen's University Belfast
Department Name: Sch of Politics Int Stu and Philosophy
Abstract
This research aims to critically address two normative questions that are becoming increasingly pressing in countries around the world as the numbers of people living into older age (in particular the numbers living beyond eighty) increase: 1. When people in this age group require care, where should the requirement to provide that care fall (on the individual, on their family, or on the State), and 2. How should the requirement to provide this care be balanced against existing obligations to care? The project aims to establish a network of researchers working on these questions.
Because they are inherently normative questions - drawing on ideas of responsibility, obligation and justice - the core of the network is made up of philosophers. However, if the research is to address the real life situation of people in the world they cannot be addressed solely at a theoretical level, but need to be informed by an understanding of the realities of care for older people. As such, this project will bring those working on normative theory into conversation with those dealing with the realities of care for older people (including historians, gerontologists and older people themselves). Equally the questions the project addresses are not ones that face the UK alone - similar demographic change in countries around the world mean that researchers are working on them in a variety of different places. In order to draw on the work of these different researchers, rooted as it is in different intellectual traditions, the project aims to bring together researchers from the UK and Western Europe with researchers from the Far East.
The project will further academic debates about the distribution of resources to care for older people, and the obligations that individuals, families and the State have towards them. The aim is that this work will also provide the foundation for ongoing collaboration across international and disciplinary boundaries that focuses on obligations to care for older people.
Because they are inherently normative questions - drawing on ideas of responsibility, obligation and justice - the core of the network is made up of philosophers. However, if the research is to address the real life situation of people in the world they cannot be addressed solely at a theoretical level, but need to be informed by an understanding of the realities of care for older people. As such, this project will bring those working on normative theory into conversation with those dealing with the realities of care for older people (including historians, gerontologists and older people themselves). Equally the questions the project addresses are not ones that face the UK alone - similar demographic change in countries around the world mean that researchers are working on them in a variety of different places. In order to draw on the work of these different researchers, rooted as it is in different intellectual traditions, the project aims to bring together researchers from the UK and Western Europe with researchers from the Far East.
The project will further academic debates about the distribution of resources to care for older people, and the obligations that individuals, families and the State have towards them. The aim is that this work will also provide the foundation for ongoing collaboration across international and disciplinary boundaries that focuses on obligations to care for older people.
Planned Impact
The impact of this project will be ongoing as the aim is to build a network that lasts beyond the length on the project and in which end-users play an active role.
Audiences
There are two main non-academic audiences for this project:
1. Policy makers at national and local level - this includes civil servants responsible for deciding how health and social care resources are to be allocated, politicians, and local managers in both the health and social care services.
2. Advocacy groups for older people - this includes both local (AgeNI) and international organisations (Age (Europe), International Longevity Centre and HelpAge International)
How audiences will benefit
The project aims to bring together researchers from different disciplinary backgrounds and from different countries. It will provide both policy makers and advocacy groups with information about the different ways in which the needs of older people are prioritised and funded, and on the key normative issues involved in making such decisions. The information provided will be rooted in sustained analytic and philosophical engagement on the key questions about who has obligations to care for older people, and about what is owed to older people. Because these questions have not so far received this kind of engagement, the briefing papers coming out of the series of workshops will provide a hitherto unavailable resource to help those engaged with decision making in this area.
Audiences
There are two main non-academic audiences for this project:
1. Policy makers at national and local level - this includes civil servants responsible for deciding how health and social care resources are to be allocated, politicians, and local managers in both the health and social care services.
2. Advocacy groups for older people - this includes both local (AgeNI) and international organisations (Age (Europe), International Longevity Centre and HelpAge International)
How audiences will benefit
The project aims to bring together researchers from different disciplinary backgrounds and from different countries. It will provide both policy makers and advocacy groups with information about the different ways in which the needs of older people are prioritised and funded, and on the key normative issues involved in making such decisions. The information provided will be rooted in sustained analytic and philosophical engagement on the key questions about who has obligations to care for older people, and about what is owed to older people. Because these questions have not so far received this kind of engagement, the briefing papers coming out of the series of workshops will provide a hitherto unavailable resource to help those engaged with decision making in this area.
Organisations
People |
ORCID iD |
| Tom Walker (Principal Investigator) | |
| Hon-Lam Li (Co-Investigator) |
| Description | A central aim of this project was to build a research network that would provide the foundation for ongoing collaboration across international and disciplinary boundaries on obligations to care for older people. This network was created by a series of workshops that pulled together researchers from law, sociology, public policy, and philosophy who are working in a wide range of countries (Hong Kong, Singapore, China, Germany, Sweden, Ireland, USA and UK). Participants of this network are now working collaboratively to plan further work on this topic that retains an international and cross-disciplinary focus. A key finding coming out of this project is that a narrow focus on particular aspects of care for older people, for example the provision of life extending treatment, is unsuitable for determining what justice requires even in relation to that aspect. Whilst disciplinary work encourages such a narrow focus, by bringing together participants from very different disciplines the project enabled the assumptions that each makes to be brought to the fore and challenged. A second key finding is that there are important questions about justice in the provision of care to older people that have not been systematically addressed in the philosophical work on justice and age to date. One of these arises from the finding that, despite very different cultural and theoretical frameworks in different parts of the world, in practice the caring role primarily falls on women. This opens up questions about the justice of social and political arrangements that perpetuate this gendered division in roles, and about the moral acceptability of assumptions about who will provide care when considering changes to those arrangements, that are largely missing from the contemporary debate. A second set of important questions arise from the use of age as a proxy for features that are morally relevant, rather than being treated as being itself morally relevant, in deciding how to distribute resources. To the extent that age is being used as a proxy, key questions about its effectiveness as a proxy, and about the justice of using a proxy in these decisions, come to the fore. But these questions have not been addressed in any detail because of a focus on the question of whether age is itself morally relevant. These findings open up important new research questions that need to be addressed if a full account of justice in the provision of care to older people is to be developed. |
| Exploitation Route | The project revealed that there are important unexamined questions about justice and the provision of care to older people. Participants in the network created by this project have taken these forward in the academic context by running additional workshops (e.g. at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in April 2017) and developing further collaborative research proposals to address them (e.g. members of the network have been collaborating on a new project, funded via the Chinese University of Hong Kong on retirement - a proposed workshop and edited collection coming out of that project have been delayed to 2021 due to covid related travel restrictions). Those questions are also important for contemporary policy debates about the provision of care and how it will be provided. The PI of this project (Dr Tom Walker, Queen's University Belfast) will, in collaboration with other members of the research network, be producing briefing reports on these issues to inform both policy makers and advocacy groups for older people. These will be developed through further consultation and discussion with members of these groups. |
| Sectors | Communities and Social Services/Policy,Healthcare,Government, Democracy and Justice |
| Description | Leadership fellow |
| Amount | £128,337 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | AH/P007619/1 |
| Organisation | Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 08/2017 |
| End | 12/2018 |