ABSTRACT
Over a sixteen month period, from November 1983 to February 1985, home helps at work in the homes of elderly people and in the setting of the local patch offices has been observed. Of the fifty-four home helps interviewed, only five pointed to the desire to work with elderly people as a specific reason for taking the job. Of these, two alone felt encouraged by their own experiences of caring for elderly relatives. Overall, first-hand knowledge of caring for an elderly person – either formally or informally – was limited. Most women anticipated the job of home help to be organized as a female task. The general climate of anti-institutionalization in the fifties and the growth of support for community care policies coupled with the dramatic projected increase in the number of very elderly people in the foreseeable future have drawn the issue of the care of old people to the attention of social scientists.
