The formal employment of family caregivers: reinforcing the familialisation of long-term care responsibilities?

Abstract

The formal employment of family caregivers represents a rather uncommon form of organising long-term care but exists in diverse welfare states. Against this background, we examine how family carers experience a formalisation of previously unpaid care by drawing on two Austrian employment programmes and discuss their larger implications with regard to the (de)familialisation of long-term care responsibilities. Depending on the welfare state context, employment models might either provide freedom of choice with regard to the preferred care arrangement and strengthen a right to care or contribute to the enforcement of family care and thereby reinforce pressures on caregiving relatives.