Centre for Policy on Ageing



Family care of the elderly in a nineteenth-century Devonshire parish
Author(s)	Jean Robin
Journal title	Ageing and Society, vol 4, part 4, December 1984
Pages	pp 505-516
Keywords	Informal care ; The Family ; Histories ; Devon.
Annotation	The focus of this paper is on the part played by children and relatives in the care of the elderly in a Devonshire parish in the mid-nineteenth century. The cohort of men and women aged 50-59 years recorded in the 1851 Census was divided into two groups according to whether or not the parish registers or censuses showed members to have had offspring who survived childhood. Cohort members and their families were then traced through the 1861 and 1871 Censuses in order to establish their residence patterns at different stages in the life cycle. It was found that children - whether married or single - played a considerable part in providing care for their aged parents. By contrast, relatives living in the same household as the elderly were more likely to be receiving than providing care. The possibility that a proportion of the cohort members who left the parish during the period did so to join children elsewhere was investigated through an examination of those of comparable age coming into the parish. (KJ).
Accession Number	CPA-930607143 A
Classmark	P6: SJ: 6A: 8DE
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...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing.