ABSTRACT
The social dynamics underlying present community care policies are rooted in traditional concepts the family, women, and the responsibility of the State. Present community care policies ignore the very cornerstone of their construction: the interaction between the economic structural conditions of women's lives and a set of social expectations that devalues and underestimates the care they provide. The central model for community care policies that would maximize gender justice is that of the social utility-a universally available array of supports to dependent adults to which families would have access as needed. The cost-benefit concerns of community care policies that would maximize gender justice differ from the present concern with avoiding the costs of institutionalization. Policies to maximize gender justice would take into account the needs of the elderly who are disabled and ill but necessarily at risk of placement in a nursing home.
