Elderly care as an epistemic object to confirm and deconstruct gendered family scripts

Abstract

In an ageing society, elderly care is a mainstream topic, calling into play not only formal but also informal care provided by the family. Women have historically been positioned as primary subjects to rely on within the domestic politics of intergenerational care, both in broader social discourses and within situated experiences, through the enactment of often stereotypical family scripts. This paper explores how women frame this situation building on a thematic analysis of a sample of posts from a dataset of discussion threads collected from an Italian online forum, where interacting parts shared stories and perspectives about the care of their elderly relatives. This work attempts to unravel the complexity of women’s experiences associated with their socially expected role of informal caregivers, exploring how through these discussions the interacting parts reinforce and/or de-construct specific pedagogical frameworks of family caregiving.