ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the ways in which northern, rural and remote places are relevant to understanding care and caregiving. Northern, rural and remote contexts serve as the locale within which caregiving, an ethic of care, and economic efficiencies of service provision are explored in this research. Gender and caregiving are fundamentally connected to service decline and need to be understood in the context of national and provincial neo-liberal responses to global economic change. Caregivers also experienced the need for assistance in dealing with daily living activities and many relied on their support networks to assist them in their caregiving roles. Although the concept of economic efficiencies is contrasted with an ethic of care, economics in a broader sense is contradictory for the participants. When economic decline is combined with service cuts there is increased pressure on women to take on more care work in unpaid roles.
