6 results
Seven - Cash-for-care benefits
- Edited by Cristiano Gori, London School of Economics and Political Science, Jose-Luis Fernandez, London School of Economics and Political Science, Raphael Wittenberg
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- Book:
- Long-Term Care Reforms in OECD Countries
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 19 August 2022
- Print publication:
- 18 December 2015, pp 143-166
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Summary
Introduction
In response to increasing care needs, the development of long-term care (LTC) systems has become a prominent policy concern across the OECD (OECD, 2011). At the same time, since the 1990s, but even more so with the economic crisis started in the second half of the 2000s, cost containment has become a major preoccupation of governments. Policy measures in LTC have therefore progressively aimed at facilitating care arrangements combining formal and informal care and/or fostering market-based provision of care. In this context, the development of cash-for-care programmes – which provides people in need of care and/or their family caregivers with cash transfers so that they can organise their own care arrangements – is a common trend in many OECD countries, whatever the initial care model. This chapter analyses the development of such programmes, exploring the ideas behind the programmes, providing an overview of the different options for this type of intervention, and, by looking at the context in which cash-for-care schemes are embedded, discusses the realities of the different programmes.
The chapter first discusses different conceptualisations and ideas behind cash-for-care programmes, with specific attention paid to the ideas of choice, consumer direction and family support, leading to three ideal-typical logics of cash-for-care programmes: a market-based approach, the citizen perspective, and a conservative-familialistic perspective. Different policy designs on which cashfor- care schemes are based are subsequently presented. Following a set of criteria that distinguish cash-for-care programmes, we delve into the LTC programmes of various OECD countries. In particular, we look at the situation in Austria, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and the UK, with some information on the US. These countries were chosen for the significance of cash-for-care programmes within their LTC systems and for their belonging to different welfare and care regimes. The reality of the different approaches to cash for care is then discussed in the broader context in which the programmes have been established, and with a view to the objectives underlying cash for care. It is argued that context, timing and the specific regulation of the schemes entail different visions of care and of care work. The discussion focuses on effects in terms of users’ satisfaction, on informal caregivers, on care workers and care labour markets, and on public LTC expenditure. The concluding section summarises the main policy messages emerging from the previous analysis.
Elasticity of care networks and the gendered division of care
- WILCO KRUIJSWIJK, BARBARA DA ROIT, MARCEL HOOGENBOOM
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- Journal:
- Ageing & Society / Volume 35 / Issue 4 / April 2015
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 07 January 2014, pp. 675-703
- Print publication:
- April 2015
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The gender gap in family care-giving is an established research finding: men dedicate less time to care-giving and provide specific gendered types of help. This article argues that in order to grasp men's contribution to care arrangements one should recognise the multifaceted nature of care and examine care networks beyond the ‘care receiver–primary care-giver’ dyad with a dynamic perspective. A qualitative analysis of the care networks of three large Dutch families with an older parent in need of care confirms the greater involvement of women in care-giving and men's tendency to provide specific types of care. However, men also contribute to the elasticity and stability of the care arrangement by filling temporary gaps and supporting the female care-givers. This article puts forward the idea that men's contribution is in turn a factor in the perpetuation of the gendered structure of care-giving.
2 - Work-family Balance in the Netherlands: Work and Care Culture Mediating Between Institutions and Practices
- Edited by Blanche Le Bihan, Claude Martin, Trudie Knijn
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- Book:
- Work and Care under Pressure
- Published by:
- Amsterdam University Press
- Published online:
- 06 January 2021
- Print publication:
- 31 October 2013, pp 33-56
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Summary
Introduction
The experience of working caregivers varies across European countries due to differences in family policies, flexible labour market policies (leave and transition policies) and the availability of care services (for children and elderly people). Comparative research underlines that in the Netherlands, the conflict between work and care is relatively weak compared to other countries in Europe (McGinnity & Calvert 2009; Chung 2011). Heejung Chung found that only one-third of the employed population in the Netherlands reports experiencing problems with fulfilling household tasks due to work obligations, compared with the European average of about 50 per cent. And according to the most recent survey conducted by the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, there is a low level of work-life conflict in the Netherlands as well as in the Nordic countries (Eurofound 2010; Chung 2011). Dutch mothers in particular are less likely to report a conflict between work and family life than Swedish mothers (Cousins & Tang 2005). Moreover, according to McGinnity and Calvert (2009), while upper social classes consistently experience higher levels of conflict than lower classes, this is remarkably not the case in Sweden and the Netherlands, where the difference is either non-significant or very small, particularly among women. These findings do not exclude in any way the existence and persistence of gender inequalities both in the labour market and within families (Devreux 2007; Evertsson et al. 2009; Yerkes 2009). Nonetheless they deserve careful consideration, as they represent the experience of women in the juggling of care and work.
The relatively low level of work-family conflict is often explained as a result of policies successfully supporting the reconciliation of work and family. Many studies, usually based on large-scale comparative surveys, approach the differences in the conciliation experience across countries by looking at the relationships between individual attitudes and practices on the one hand, and social policies that facilitate the combination of work and care on the other. However, in doing so, they tend to overlook the mechanisms that mediate between policies, individual attitudes and practices. In our contribution, we argue that the explanations linked to the existence and nature of social policies are necessary but not sufficient.
7 - Blurring Boundaries and Clashing Loyalties: Working and caring in Italy
- Edited by Blanche Le Bihan, Claude Martin, Trudie Knijn
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- Book:
- Work and Care under Pressure
- Published by:
- Amsterdam University Press
- Published online:
- 06 January 2021
- Print publication:
- 31 October 2013, pp 151-170
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Summary
Introduction
This chapter focuses on the impact of combining care and work on couples with small children and on children who take care of older parents in Italy. This requires a consideration of the ways in which family, work and private and social life are affected by this experience. But it also highlights the fact that, in a context of a highly familialised care system like Italy’s, solutions to reduce the pressures on parents who work (with atypical jobs or working hours) are provided by generations who are soon likely to be in need of care themselves, while at the same time a ‘middle’ generation, still employed in paid work, must split its care between young families with working mothers and frail elderly persons.
Our analysis of the work and care balance in Italy therefore focuses on the family, and primarily on the family relationship – that is, the family kinship network and in particular generational relationships in different phases of the life course. We first consider how new work-family balances are based on and shaped by the different forms of generational dependencies and interdependencies. We then look at how the exchange and support of family care, but especially generational exchange and (inter) dependencies, contribute to blurring the boundaries not only between different types of care (formal and informal) but also among different households. From an analytical point of view, two concepts of the family are employed: the first refers to the relationship between family members, regardless of who lives with whom; the second refers to the household – that is, who lives with whom.
Two main questions are raised in comparing the similarities and differences in work-care balancing for children and the elderly. How do intergenerational work-care strategies contribute to blurring the boundaries between households? And how do intergenerational work-care arrangements create tensions among different loyalties, as well as between family membership and individual aspirations and choices?
The policy context and the central role of intergenerational ties
In Italy, notwithstanding increasing female labour-market participation and population ageing, the ‘strong family ties’ model (Reher 1998) continues to be perceived in the public discourse and in policies as the inexhaustible resource to be tapped when life-course transitions or unexpected crises render an individual or a household vulnerable.
seven - The new risk of dependency in old age and (missed) employment opportunities: the Southern Europe model in a comparative perspective
- Edited by Joseph Troisi, University of Malta, Hans-Joachim von Kondratowitz
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- Book:
- Ageing in the Mediterranean
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 04 February 2022
- Print publication:
- 21 August 2013, pp 151-172
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Introduction
The literature analysing women's labour market participation and its implications for welfare polices has generally focused on childcare services, and more specifically, on the effects of this area of caregiving activities on female (namely, mother’s) employment. In particular, the development of public and publicly regulated care services for small children, on the one hand, enables women to participate in the labour market and, on the other, offers them employment opportunities.
With the ageing population and the changing forms of care, the developments in the elder care labour market are gradually becoming a crucial issue. In this respect, the ‘new risk’ of dependency represents a challenge and also an opportunity for the development of the welfare system.
This chapter provides an overview of the relationship between the development of long-term-care policies and services in European countries, and female employment in the care sector, by means of comparing statistical data, and spells out the specificities of Southern European countries, that is, the Mediterranean countries of Europe. We also aim at analysing the policy-making environments in which those policies are evolving in order to study the interaction between evolutions in the labour market for caring activities, immigration policies and the shape that those long-term care policies have been taking in Southern Europe, with a focus on Italy and Spain.
Whereas Northern European countries developed policies in this field at an earlier stage, and Continental countries have intervened with new policies in the last 10–20 years, in Southern Europe long-term care policies continue to be weak and fragmented. The Nordic countries have the highest degree of development in this domain, with a strong public involvement, both in the provision and the financing of care. The Bismarck-oriented countries of the Continental model have elaborated long-term care policies later on in time, at a smaller scale, and certainly with a weaker role being played by public administrations in the direct provision of services. In Southern European countries the creation of jobs in the sector is currently at a very low level, thus potentially representing a niche for labour force expansion.
Relatives as paid care-givers: how family carers experience payments for care
- ELLEN GROOTEGOED, TRUDIE KNIJN, BARBARA DA ROIT
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- Journal:
- Ageing & Society / Volume 30 / Issue 3 / April 2010
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 14 December 2009, pp. 467-489
- Print publication:
- April 2010
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Payments for care, by which people in need of long-term care directly employ care workers, have been introduced in many European countries. In The Netherlands, care dependants are allowed to use these payments to hire relatives to perform care tasks. Care-givers who are employed by their relatives are in a hybrid position, because they are contracted as employees in the informal setting of a family home and its affective care relationships. This paper reports a qualitative study of relatives' experiences of payments for care and how these affect their care-giving. In-depth interviews were undertaken with 17 paid carers: they were asked to respond to three fictional vignettes of contrasting care trajectories. It was found that the cash nexus had mixed and partly contradictory implications for the paid care-givers. On the one hand, the care-givers were satisfied with the arrangement, as the payments recognised and raised their status as carers, and were seen as reward and reciprocation for their care work. Some carers had found that the contract helped manage strained relationships, by enabling a clearer differentiation of care tasks from affection. On the other hand, some who regarded themselves as employees and saw their role as equivalent to formal carers felt a greater obligation to provide high-quality care, and found that they were thanked less often and received fewer tokens of gratitude.