Community Care and the Family: A Case for Equal Opportunities?

Abstract

Despite the existence of sex discrimination legislation certain social policies appear to militate against equal opportunities between the sexes. Community care policies are a case in point, especially with current interest shifting towards ‘care by the community’, and the presumed existence of ‘informal caring networks’, with a view to their effective mobilization at a time of cutbacks both in public expenditure and in domiciliary social service provision for groups such as the handicapped and the elderly. To the extent that community care policies rely on women's unpaid domestic labour and may necessitate their withdrawal from the labour market, such policies could be counter-productive to the promotion of ‘equal opportunities’. The challenge is to devise community care policies which do not disadvantage women and which give men ‘equal opportunities’ to take on caring roles usually assigned to women.