Envisioning a Gerontology-Enriched

Care in old age is not a citizenship right in the United States, and unmet needs remain a hidden struggle. When measured against an ethics of care, long-term care (LTC) falls short. A critical step toward more just systems of LTC is to bring feminist theories of care into cooperation with geron-tology and disability thought. Doing so will entail keeping all participants in the care relationship in focus and reworking the relationship of ethics of care to justice. This article draws on the capabilities approach to justice, as developed by feminist philosopher Martha Nussbaum, which has care, depen-dence, and dignity at its core. Keywords capabilities, care theory, elder care, ethics of care, gerontology Long-term care (LTC) in the United States is characterized by fragmentation and bias in public funding to institutional care in nursing homes (Kitchener & Harrington, 2004). Absent coherent pro-gramming across states and a universal LTC policy, care for elders and disabled adults has been negotiated within families or obtained by individuals with various degrees of support from public, semipublic, or private agencies. Approximately 90 % of noninstitutional LTC is provided by unpai