The Interpretive Dynamics of Filial and Collective Responsibility for Elderly People (Essay‪)‬

IN CONTEMPORARY CANADIAN SOCIETY, RESPONSIBILITY FOR aging parents (filial responsibility) is topical. When adult children enter midlife, they may witness changes in their parents' health that motivate feelings and thoughts about filial responsibility, and for some, an increase in support provided. Indeed, midlife has been described as marked by "filial anxiety" about parent care (Sherrell, Buckwalter, and Morhardt 2001). Approximately 10 percent of middle age Canadians provide parent care (Stobert and Cranswick 2004); given the shift away from institutionalization in the 1980s (Cranswick 2003), it can be argued that the likelihood of providing such care has and will continue to increase (Marks, Lambert, and Jun 2001). Adults may soon be spending more time caring for aging parents than raising their children (McDaniel 2005). Filial responsibility is often contrasted against a concept of collective responsibility for care of the elderly that emphasizes interdependency and ties between nonkin, viewing the self as "connected to [others] and bound in a larger social unit" (Gould 1999:601). As well as promoting ideals of helping nonkin older adults, collectivism is "congruent with the social-good model of public policy, which defines a good and just society as one that provides for the needs of all" (Killian and Ganong 2002:1081). In Canada, the principle of collectivism is most evident in its institutionalized form in the welfare state and universal health care, although both of these institutions are being eroded (Williams et al. 2001).