Professor Daniel Halliday, The University of Melbourne

People are living longer lives and having fewer children. One important consequence of this is that there are increasingly fewer younger people around to provide care for the growing number of persons living into advanced old age.

Care work can be rewarding, but it also tends to be burdensome, as well as unequally distributed. While this is true of care work in general, the aim of this lecture will be to examine some of the complexities around the burden of elder care and why they are special.

It's stating the obvious to say that elder care is rather unlike other kinds of care work, such as childcare. But some of the differences go undiscussed, and do not get the attention they deserve. It is acceptable to talk about looking forward to when one’s children grow old enough that they require less care work. But to say this of elder care is to break a taboo, since it is very close to wishing for someone’s death.

While childcare typically involves an individual who is on an upward trajectory, with rewarding milestones, elder care is more associated with someone’s decline, with some capacities being lost altogether. And lastly there is the place of elder care in personal relationships – not least the history one might have with the recipient of one’s care, and how that might colour the care relationship.

The problem of elder care, as something we will need to provide on a large scale, is something of a new problem, one that we are still yet to process even to the extent of working out what an ideal scenario might look like.

By focusing on these aspects, Daniel Halliday, hopes to show how philosophy can be of some use.

Everyone is welcome to attend this open lecture.

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