care

care

in (or into) care Social welfare made the legal responsibility of a local authority by order of a court

Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

care

1. the work involved in supporting people who, because of physical frailty chronic illness or other forms of incapacity and disability, are incapable of leading an autonomous existence.
2. other kinds of carework, e.g. in child-rearing (see CHILD CARE) and DOMESTIC LABOUR. This should be distinguished from care in sense 1.

Care in sense 1 operates over a wide range of social relations. A clear dividing line can be drawn between formal and informal care (see Abrams, 1978) as it exists in contemporary industrial societies. Formal care refers to services provided by agents of organization (statutory, voluntary and/or private) to people within clearly defined categories of need. Informal care is personally directed towards certain people who have a social relationship with their carer - usually a family member, and most often a spouse (Parker, 1993), or female relative.

Feminist sociologists (see also FEMINISM) have had a major impact on the understanding of care and caring relationships. They have argued that caring is ‘a gendered concept’ and that women constitute the majority of carers both informally, in the private sphere, and as low-paid care workers (‘care assistants’) in the formal sector (Finch and Groves, 1982; Ungerson, 1987; Lewis and Meredith, 1988). Studies of caring have examined the complex reasons why women care and the particular problems and difficulties they face. Social policies involving decarceration and COMMUNITY CARE, the decline of neighbour-hood and COMMUNITY associated with increasing SOCIAL (and geographical) MOBILITY, have placed an increasing burden on individual women carers. There is some evidence that women are reluctant to enter caring relationships with female relatives but lack viable alternatives (Cotterill, 1994). Recent research using data from the 1980 British General Household Survey has also pointed to the significant contribution made by male carers, particularly men who care for their wives (Arber and Gilbert, 1989).

Collins Dictionary of Sociology, 3rd ed. © HarperCollins Publishers 2000

care, custody, and control

Describes a standard exclusion in liability insurance policies. Under this exclusion, the liability insurance does not apply to damage to property in the care or custody of the insured, or to damage to property over which the insured is for any purpose exercising physical control.

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Architecture and Construction. Copyright © 2003 by McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

CARE

agency devoted to channeling relief to needy people abroad. [Am. Hist.: NCE, 456]

See: Aid, Organizational

Allusions—Cultural, Literary, Biblical, and Historical: A Thematic Dictionary. Copyright 2008 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.