Constructing Social Care: The Australian Dilemma

Abstract

On the evidence of virtually all animal species, we have to believe that there is something instinctual about primal care. Call it maternal instinct or parental protectiveness, or take it further to the clear herd instinct which protects the group from external predators, the species can survive only if its young are properly cared for. At the other end of the scale, the elderly may or may not enjoy continued care, depending upon the adequacy of resources for their maintenance beyond the years of productive usefulness. There is an immediate dilemma: caring may have an instinctual component; but caring as manifested in actual behaviour depends upon social conditions and constraints. Care — like love, prejudice, hatred and jealousy — is socially constructed.