Care and Help
We distinguished the following types of care and help: doing small jobs
for others, caring for the sick or the elderly, giving psychological support,
helping people to move, helping with transport (e.g., transporting
children to and from school), and participating in (unpaid) management
or administrative activities. Again, women are the ones who care
and help the most. Doing small jobs and helping people to move are
activities more often performed by men, but women offer all other types
of care or help more frequently than men do. As was the case with hospitality,
offering care or help does not necessarily or mainly spring from
altruistic motives. The motives lie scattered on an imaginary scale of
altruism: from selflessly wanting to contribute to the well-being of other
people, without any expectations of return, to reciprocally exchanging
help or helping as a compensation for being helped oneself, to keeping a
sharp eye as to whether the debt balance is not pending too much to one
side. You are helping other people, knowing that you will be helped in
return.