Family caregiving for older adults: gendered roles and caregiver burden in emigrant households of Kerala,India

The Indian state of Kerala leads the demographic transition and characteristically showcases emigration of predominantly male adult children, leaving behind parents, spouses and children. When men emigrate, gendered contexts burden women, especially spouses and daughters-in-law, with caregiving duties including elder care. Employing the social exchange perspective and drawing on in-depth interviews of left-behind caregivers to older adults in emigrant households, we explore reciprocal motives, expectations and perceptions of burden. Findings resonate gendered expectations of care and social sanction that ensure women do much of the caregiving. Daughters-in-law sacrificed careers and endured separation from husbands to transition into caregiving roles, costs borne to effectuate their husband's filial role. Perceived non-reciprocity, unbalanced exchanges and unmet expectations increased perceptions of burden for caregivers. Temporary financial autonomy could hardly alleviate perceptions of burden among women caregivers who perceived emotional and functional support exchanges from husbands, older adults themselves or other family members as supportive.     

Mapping Market Areas Using Nonparametric Smoothing

A new method is proposed to map firms' principal market areas using shipment data. The new method is a general one which could prove just as useful in mapping the incidence of disease as in mapping market areas. This method is applied to agricultural data for feeder cattle sales at a video cattle auction. Transportation costs appear to be the main determinant of market area boundaries, but there are many cases where transportation costs alone cannot explain the market areas found. The size and shape of market areas for feeder cattle buyers are large, irregularly shaped, and extensively overlapping.     

Book reviews

AUSTRALIA IN NEW GUINEA. L. P. Mair. Melbourne University Press, 1970 (2nd ed.). 254 pp. $6.75 hard cover.

DENIS HEALEY AND THE POLICIES OF POWER. Geoffrey Williams and Bruce Reed. Sidgwick and Jackson Ltd., London, 1971. 286 pp. £3.50 stg.

THE PHILIPPINES AND TAIWAN: INDUSTRIALIZATION AND TRADE POLICIES. John H. Power, Gerardo P. Sicat and Mo‐Huang Hsing. Oxford University Press for the Development Centre, OECD, 1971. 324 pp. $7.00 (Paper).

TRADE AND GROWTH IN THE PHILIPPINES. AN OPEN DUAL ECONOMY. George 1. Hicks and Geoffrey McNicoll. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, N.Y., 1971. xi, 244 pp. US.$8.50.

THE NEW CHINA. J. A. Johnston and Maslyn Williams (ed.). A. H. & A. W. Reed, Sydney, 1971. 127 pp.

STRUGGLE FOR DEMOCRACY: SUNG CHIAO‐JEN AND THE 1911 CHINESE REVOLUTION. K. S. Liew. Australian National University Press, Canberra, 1971. 260 pp. $7.50.

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF INDEPENDENT FIJI. E. K. Fisk. Australian National University Press, Canberra, 1970. 89 pp. $1.95 paper.

THE MAKING OF INDIA'S FOREIGN POLICY: DETERMINANTS, INSTITUTIONS, PROCESSES, PERSONALITIES. J. Bandyopadhyaya. Allied Publishers, Bombay, 1970, xi, 286 pp. Rs 20.

SOVIET RELATIONS WITH LATIN AMERICA, 1918–68. Stephen Clissold (ed.). Oxford University Press, 1970. 313 pp. $11.60.

OIL AND THE ROUMANIAN STATE. Maurice Pearton. Oxford University Press, 1971. 361 pp. $12.50.

BRASSEY'S ANNUAL: DEFENCE AND THE ARMED FORCES 1971. Major‐General J. L. Moulton (ed.). William Clowes and Sons Ltd., London, 1971. 517 pp. £5.00 (stg.)

THE TEMPEST WITHIN. AN ACCOUNT OF EAST PAKISTAN. Dom Moraes. Vikas Publications, Delhi, 1971. x, 103 pp. Rs. 12.50.

POLITICS IN A PLURAL SOCIETY. A STUDY OF NON‐COMMUNAL POLITICAL PARTIES IN WEST MALAYSIA. R. K. Vasil. Oxford University Press for the Australian Institute of International Affairs, Kuala Lumpur, 1971. 338 pp. $6.00 paper, $11.20 hard cover.

THE STRUGGLE OF ISLAM IN MODERN INDONESIA. B. J. Boland. Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, 1971. 283 pp. 28 guilders.

ZIONISM, ISRAEL AND ASIAN NATIONALISM. G. H. Jansen. The Institute for Palestine Studies, Beirut, 1971. xv, 347 pp. US$2.00 Paperback.

WESTERN ECONOMICS IN NON‐WESTERN ECONOMIES. L. G. Reynolds. University of Western Australia Press, 1970. 37 pp. $1.00.

THE INDIGENT RICH: A THEORY OF GENERAL EQUILIBRIUM IN A KEYNESIAN SYSTEM. J W. C. Cumes. Pergamon Press, Australia, 1971. 218 pp. $5.95.