The Long Shadow of Caregiving

Abstract

Caregiving seems to be a great bargain for old people, not to mention that it is probably a key to the survival of the human species. In this chapter, I visit a population in which young people give care to old people. I note that caregiving has a long shadow: Grow it a bit today, and we won't walk out of its shadow for a much longer while. For example, a decline of death rate of the old people from 5 to 4% today will result in a rise of the caregiving burden from 0.4 to 0.5 old persons per young person. This climb will take 126 years.