Unpaid care for children, seniors on the rise in Canada
Vancouver Sun
March 5, 2008
By: Frances Bula

Louise Holm and her family didn't plan to create a complex network to take care of their 87-year-old father.

But that's what ended up happening anyway.

Holm and her family are becoming more typical every day, as census statistics show that Canadians are all doing more unpaid work all the time at home, both taking care of children and, increasingly, taking care of seniors….

Holm is a court reporter who has a busy life with her husband, son, daughter, dog and job, aside from caring for her father.

Census statistics released Tuesday show that 18.4 per cent of Canadians said in the 2006 census that they spend time taking care of seniors in their lives, compared to 16.5 per cent in 2001.

People in the field say it's not surprising that has happened for all kinds of reasons….

There's another factor that could have led to the jump, says Watson. That was the shift several years ago in B.C. that reduced government home-support services.

"What was withdrawn in some cases was meal preparations and housekeeping. So I think families had to jump in," said Watson.

The cuts to other parts of the system also meant some people didn't want to put their parents in care homes, because the staffing was not as good as it used to be.

It looks as though the trend to caring for seniors is only likely to keep growing.

"It's going to get a lot worse before it gets any better," says University of B.C. sociology professor James White. "The system is not geared up. We're short on doctors, we're short on nurses, facilities are already crowded and the boom hasn't even hit yet. There's no social supports. What in the heck is going to happen?"

The census statistics showed that it's still women doing more of the seniors' care than men, although men have shown significant increases in the amount they spend on both senior and child care.

About one-fifth, almost 21 per cent, of women spent some time looking after seniors in 2006. The share of men providing care increased at a slightly faster pace, from 13.6 in 1996 to 15.7 in 2006.

In B.C., the numbers were slightly lower for 2006 than the national average, with 20 per cent of women spending some time looking after seniors and 14.7 per cent of men.