Due to labour shortages in healthcare and discussions around the sustainability of long-term care, our society is increasingly counting on informal caregivers. Research by The Netherlands Institute for Social Research (SCP) shows that almost 2 million people combine paid work with informal caregiving. Some of them experience issues such as overburdening and health problems.
The interaction between work and informal care is central to this research by De Boer and Broese van Groenou. Does working become more difficult because you’re also an informal caregiver, or is informal care more complicated to manage because you continue to work? To properly inform current policy on what makes combining work and informal care feasible and maintainable, more knowledge is needed on the interaction between work and informal care.
This mutual dependency between work and care exists at the individual level, but also among social stakeholders (employers, care professionals, policymakers) who facilitate forms of support and may have conflicting interests in doing so. There are still only a few companies that implement true caregiver-friendly policies, and care professionals pay little attention to how informal caregivers combine care with work.
This research project provides insights into how to support the combination of work and informal care in two ways. First, at the individual level, it identifies which groups of informal caregivers experience problems and opportunities in the labour market. This also involves looking at the different circumstances and life stages of informal caregivers. For example, the consequences of a care task may be different for young people who are in the process of studying or in their first job, as for forty-somethings with young children or those nearing retirement.
Next, interviews with working informal caregivers and employers and focus groups with policymakers and other stakeholders discuss what support is necessary, possible and desirable for these groups. This will focus on dilemmas that obstruct the combination of work and care. The insights obtained are translated into concrete recommendations for policy and practice in close consultation with involved stakeholders.
Broese van Groenou: "We are very happy with this grant that strengthens the ties between VU and SCP in research on work and informal care. The subject is highly topical now that the government is relying more and more on informal caregivers regarding assistance to vulnerable citizens. A well-tuned mix of quantitative and qualitative research will give more insight into how citizens can combine work and care for a long time at different points in their life cycle."
The research is being conducted at VU Amsterdam in close cooperation with The Netherlands Institute for Social Research. This project will run for two years and is funded by Instituut Gak. Instituut Gak aims to contribute to the quality of social security in the Netherlands by financially supporting research, projects and chairs.