This book focuses on the ‘informal care’ provided by family members, neighbours and friends, exploring the ways in which it is woven into the organization of people’s everyday lives.

Interdependency and Care over the Lifecourse draws upon theories of time and space to consider how informal care is woven into the fabric of everyday lives and is shaped by social and economic inequalities and opportunities.

The book comprises three parts. The first explores contrasting social and economic contexts of informal care in different parts of the world. The second looks at different themes and dynamics of caring, using fictional vignettes of illness and health, child care, elderly care and communities of care. The book examines the significance to practices of care throughout the lifecourse of:

• understandings and expectations of care
• emotional exchanges involved in care
• memories and anticipations of giving and receiving care
• the social nature of the spaces and places in which care is carried out
• the practical time-space scheduling necessary to caring activities.

Finally the authors critically examine how the frameworks of caringscapes and carescapes might be used in research, policy and practice. A working example is provided.

This book will be of interest to students and researchers of care work, health and social care, geography, sociology of the family and social policy as well as those in business and policy communities trying to gain an understanding of how work and informal care interweave.