Caring for t[]e inheritance: Elderly care, inheritance rights, and subjective tension in a village from Northern Dobruja

Popa, Mihai (2013) Caring for t[]e inheritance: Elderly care, inheritance rights, and subjective tension in a village from Northern Dobruja. Acta Ethnographica Hungarica, 58 (1). pp. 107-122. ISSN 1216-9803

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Abstract

In this paper I show how inheritance is exchanged for old age care in a village from Northern Dobruja, Romania. The elderly have to insure their old age care while managing relations with their children who are not always able to provide care. In Romania internal and international migration has made future prospects of care in the family uncertain. While according to the regulations of the Civil Code the children are the almost certain beneficiaries of their parents’ property, local arrangements for inter vivos transfers can subvert these regulations and work according to an alternative principle justifying inheritance other than legal filiation, namely care. By discussing one complex case I show how the tensions associated with inheritance and care obligations can illustrate more generally subjective experiences of old age in present-day rural Romania.

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