Weaving Webs of Care: Older Men’s Roles in End-of-Life Care for their Wives

TL;DR

This study explores how older men in South Korea care for their terminally ill wives, highlighting emotional and societal influences on caregiving roles.

Contribution

The study introduces caregiving as a reciprocal and evolving process, emphasizing interdependence rather than one-way duty.

Findings

Older male caregivers are driven by guilt and a desire for atonement, reflecting their roles as breadwinners.

Caregiving roles often remain patriarchal, with men managing care rather than performing hands-on tasks.

Caregiving becomes a shared and evolving responsibility, with older men eventually needing care themselves.

Abstract

As South Korea is undergoing rapid demographic shifts and evolving family structures, spousal caregiving has become increasingly vital in older adult care. This growing trend underscores the urgency for research on older men serving as primary caregivers for their terminally ill spouses. Drawing on six months of ethnographic fieldwork with two caregiving cases in a hospice and palliative care (HPC) unit, this study explores how older male caregivers navigate care within the complex interplay of motivations, gender norms, and intergenerational dynamics. The findings reveal that caregiving among older men is deeply influenced by guilt stemming from their roles as primary breadwinners and retrospective acknowledgment of their wives’ sacrifices. Guilt-driven caregiving manifests in the effort to provide care in the form of atonement. Additionally, older men’s caregiving retains patriarchal characteristics, as they assume managerial rather than hands-on roles, delegating tasks to children, in-laws, and HPC staff by establishing “webs of care.” The components of this care network struggle to define good care. A key contribution of this study is its examination of caregiving as a reciprocal process rather than a unidirectional duty. Older husbands act as primary caregivers, but over time they come to require care themselves because of aging-related vulnerabilities. These findings underscore the need for policies that extend caregiving support beyond the family to ensure a more equitable distribution of care responsibilities. By recognizing caregiving as an interdependent and evolving process, this study contributes to rethinking older adult care as a shared responsibility rather than an isolated family burden.