ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews approaches to the study of informal caregiver networks and formal service availability to older persons in rural communities and highlights problems caused by the theoretical need to include both micro- and macro-level variables. It identifies a statistical approach that gives better options for combining observations at multiple levels of analysis. The chapter discusses a new strategy to incorporate both individual and system level variables into the analysis of formal and informal care networks. A comprehensive understanding of the complex interrelationships between informal caregiving networks and formal service infrastructure is of particular importance in rural areas. In M. H. Cantor’s theoretical work on the social system available to older Americans, she envisioned the elderly person at the center of a series of concentric circles containing a range of informal and formal sources of care. The needs of the rural older adults, as with their urban counterparts, are addressed by overlapping systems of informal and formal care.
