In this article, the changing geography of care for the elderly in today’s society is mapped out in (1) its consequences for the meaning of “home” for frail elderly and (2) for the distribution of care responsibilities. Two current ideas that are criticized are that (1) home is always the best place to be (and therefore also the preferred place to receive care), and (2) that one has stronger ethical obligations to people who live in one’s neighbourhood, because of their proximity. Together with the so-called ethics of care, care is considered a fundamental societal practice, and the distribution of caring responsibilities a primary ethical question. Care responsibility, it is argued, is never a natural given, but must be negotiated in every situation and different context anew. In following moral philosopher Robert Goodin, the article concludes that responsibility in long-term relationships between frail parents and adult children not proximity is decisive for assigning responsibility, but the parents’ specific vulnerability.

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How does globalization aff ect the lives of older people? Developments in demography show that the world population is rapidly getting older, and not only in affl uent societies. Politically, economically, socially and culturally, the elderly are in a vulnerable position. Is a global ethical response possible? Christian theology should actively support the human rights discourse that pleads for non-discrimination of the elderly in society. Yet, a human rights ethic is unable to account for the stages of life and the specifi c role of the elderly within communities; these are highlighted within more communitarian approaches. Communitarianism however, has its limitations as well. A global ethic of ageing should not fi x the elderly within closed traditions and communities; rather, it requires openness towards other cultures and ways of life. 'Dialogical contextualism' should be the method, and its main question should be: can people globally learn from one another about how to live in dignity into old age? Th is article concludes with some European refl ections on the dignity of older persons, in which a hermeneutic of the concept of human dignity and empirical fi ndings are brought together. Th e results may function as an impulse for further intercultural conversation on a global scale.

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