가족 내 노인 돌보기에 대한 여성학적 문제제기

This paper attempts to analyze family careglVlng to the disabled elderly from the feminist perspective. The cases used in the paper were selected from the people who were joining the family caregivers' self-help group in Chapel Hill Senior Center where I worked as a social work intern for a year. First, family careglVlng and nursing home placement are analyzed from women, the majority of family caregivers' standpoint. Second, problems related to gender inequity in family caregiving to the elderly is concretely analyzed. They are: women's responsibility of family careglvmg as a result of socially structured sex-role expectations, the vicious circle of gender inequity in labor market and family caregiving to the elderly, and female caregivers' role conflicts in their middle age and their effects on women's later life. Finally, the directions of studies on family caregiving to the elderly in Korea are discussed. The focuses are posed on the relationship between the patriarchal characteristics of Korean family and women's role in family careglVlng to the elderly, needed social supports for family caregivers, and the difficulties Korean female elders have as the results of gender inequality in Korean society.