New policies for caring family members in Eu-ropean welfare states

Abstract

Since the 1990s, the West European welfare states have extended public social services and social rights for senior citizens in need of care. They have also started to support family members more in their caring role. The unpaid, informal care done by (mostly female) spouses or adult children of the frail elderly people has been transformed into forms of family care that are paid for by state programs such as ‘cash-for-care’ or by municipalities, and which connected to some degree also with employment rights. As a consequence, also the ways in which welfare states construct the relationship between family members has changed to some degree.

So far, there is relatively little research about welfare state policies towards senior care by family members. This paper introduces a typology of ‘family care regimes’ in the field of care for senior citizens, which can be used as a theoretical framework for cross-national analyzes of welfare state institutions which are framing the work situation of caring family members and their relationship with the care recipients in family care. It also is analyzed how far the different types of the family care regime are connected with tensions.