Abstract
This chapter will focus on the role of family networks and other social support networks for well-being in older age, providing empirical data across European countries on different sources of support. The first section will illustrate how family care in this respect represents a relevant actor, not only in traditional familistic societies but also in more well-developed European welfare states. Comparative data will be presented in particular on the role played by the family in granting assistance in case of increased dependency in older age. A related issue will be represented by the availability of supports to reconcile paid work and (unpaid) care tasks, especially in the light of the Europe-wide trends to a prolonged working life and increasing female participation in the labour market. Recent empirical evidence will be furthermore provided of the growing importance of migrant care work in households with dependent older people across the Continent, in particular when the formal care system is unable to tackle the challenge of very heavy care needs. The chapter will finally describe the effects of lacking family and support networks, which might take the form of elder abuse and neglect, identifying the main risk factors and possible strategies to prevent it.
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Notes
- 1.
The EU-funded research project EUROFAMCARE (EFC) was carried out in 2004–2005 in six European countries (Germany, Greece, Italy, Poland, Sweden and the United Kingdom) with the aim to evaluate the situation of family carers of older people in relation to the availability, use and acceptability of supporting services (for more details, refer to http://www.uke.uni-hamburg.de/eurofamcare). The project Carers@work (acronym for “The Reconciliation of Employment and Eldercare”, funded by the Volkswagen Foundation) aimed at analysing existing policies for and reconciliation strategies of working carers of older people care in Germany, Italy, Poland and the United Kingdom (http://www.carersatwork.tu-dortmund.de/en/). The ABUEL study, financed by the European Agency for Public Health, aimed at estimating the prevalence and risk factors of elder abuse and neglect in the community in seven countries: Germany, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, Portugal, Spain and Sweden (for more information, please refer to: http://www.abuel.org/).
- 2.
This model is the one informing the so-called “subsidiarity principle”, according to which Welfare States have a residual function and have to be activated only in case of family “failure”.
- 3.
In the following, the source for references to the EFC will be Lamura et al. (2008), unless differently stated.
- 4.
The Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) is a multi-disciplinary and cross-national panel database of micro data on health, socio-economic status and social and family networks of more than 45,000 individuals aged 50 or over. Eleven countries contributed data to the 2004 SHARE baseline study: Denmark, Sweden, Austria, France, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy and Greece (further data were collected in 2005–2006 in Israel). Two “new” EU member states—the Czech Republic and Poland—as well as Ireland joined SHARE in 2006 and participated in the second wave of data collection in 2006–2007 (for further information, consult http://www.share-project.org/).
- 5.
In this context, reconciliation of care and work was defined as “successful” when the carer perceives that the “right” balance between care and work responsibilities has been achieved.
- 6.
Given the focus of this chapter, the phenomenon of elder abuse in institutions is not discussed here, whereas this represents a relevant phenomenon in many European and non-European countries.
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Chiatti, C. et al. (2013). Family Networks and Supports in Older Age. In: Phellas, C. (eds) Aging in European Societies. International Perspectives on Aging, vol 6. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-8345-9_9
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