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Crises of seniors' care in countries like the UK and Canada, further highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic, have been connected to processes of privatization and financialization. In this paper I argue that rent theory is important for disaggregating mechanisms, including of accumulation by dispossession, the devaluation of labour, and assetization, that underpin the process of financialization in the sector. Work on rents often divides between critical approaches, especially to land rent, and mainstream institutionalist and public choice approaches to rent-seeking. Critical rent theory is evolving beyond this divide to understand a broader range of types of rent. Yet, despite attention to the increasing importance of economic rents and forms of rentierism, labour and social reproduction are often excluded from the analysis of how rent relations arise. This paper demonstrates the problems with these exclusions. The argument is illustrated through an analysis of the restructuring of eldercare in British Columbia, Canada, in the last two decades, and employs a feminist political economy approach to examine the social production of rent relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The transition from defined-benefit to defined-contribution occupational-pension plans has placed a premium on the participants' or contributors' decision-making competence. Their attitudes to risk and their responses to available investment options can have far-reaching implications for their retirement income. Behavioural research on risk and uncertainty has raised understanding of the limits of individual decision-making, but the social status and demographic characteristics of plan participants may also affect risk perception and pension choices. By studying a random sample of the British adult population, this paper explores the significance of socio-demographic characteristics for pension-related risk attitudes. It is demonstrated that pension-plan participants do not appear to understand the risks associated with different types of retirement savings and pension plans. The paper also shows that the gender, age and income of plan participants can give rise to distinctive risk propensities, and that marital status and, in particular, whether a spouse also has a pension can also have significant consequences for household risk preferences. These results have implications for those segments of the population that are disadvantaged in the labour market. Employer-provided pensions' education and information programmes may have to be more basic and more closely tailored to the social status of pension plan participants than hitherto assumed or hoped. KEY WORDS--Gender, pension risk, socio-demographic status, spousal entitlements.