Does Caregiving Add To Already Existing Disadvantages?

In ageing societies, the increasing quota of older and frail individuals creates unprecedented needs for care. Governments face the economic challenge of long-term care (LTC) policies that support older people with limitations in everyday activities. All over Europe, care responsibilities for older individuals fall on the shoulders of family members, particularly partners and children, usually wives and daughters and daughters-in-law. The care load can negatively affect various outcomes, mainly psychological and physical health. Nonetheless, the socio-economic characteristics of informal caregivers remain overlooked by research. In the present study, we aim to uncover socio-economic differences (regarding education, income, and wealth) in the probability of providing informal caregiving to older parents (and parents-in-law) in Europe, using the Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe (SHARE, 2004-2020). Preliminary results indicate that there is a positive gradient between women’s/households’ socio-economic status and providing support to parents(in-laws); educational level appears to be the dimension along which differences in care provision emerge the most. Such provision is at low-intensity levels, and it may be offered as a complement to formal services that high socio-economic status individuals can afford to purchase on the market. A lower commitment to older parents(in-laws) can be experienced as less burdensome and be offered at the daughters’ (in-laws) discretion. However, it emerges clearly that low-income groups compensate for lack of resources with co-residence with older parents, allegedly as a strategy to care for them.