Support to the elderly and caring regimes. An analysis of patterns of informal support and their determinants in six European countries

In this chapter Albertini offers an analysis of patterns of informal and formal care support to the elderly in six European countries: Austria, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Poland and Spain. In particular, using data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe, the author shows that the quota of elderly people receiving informal support is far larger than the number of individuals getting formal support. It is also argued that the generosity of LTC policies does not crowd out the family; on the contrary, it crowds in informal support provision and push the family to specialise in less time and skills demanding tasks. Patterns of informal support fit well the care regimes typologies: displaying a north to south gradient in the likelihood of receiving unpaid help, and an opposite gradient in the average amount of support received. Differently, patterns of formal care utilization follow only to some extent the typologies of care regimes proposed in the literature. In particular, the analysis of home care services questions the existence of both a Continental and Mediterranean regime.