Who now reads Parsons and Bales?: Casting a critical eye on the “gendered styles of caregiving” literature

Our concern in this article is with a claim that is either explicit or implicit in much of the gerontological literature on caregiving, namely, that male caregiving is managerial and instrumental while female caregiving is intimately connected with the maintenance of family relationships. We argue that his claim can be seen as a fossilized remnant of a theoretical tradition (the Parsons/Bales argument relating to an instrumental/expressive division of labor within the nuclear family) that has increasingly gone out of fashion in other areas of sociological research. We then borrow from feminist theories relating to the ideology of intensive mothering to show why claims relating to “gendered styles of care” are problematic. Finally, we use qualitative data from interviews with the wives of caregiving husbands to suggest that the emphasis on “relationship” often found in interviews with female caregivers has less to do with the kinkeeper role typically assigned to women than with the performance of gender.