Many people provide informal care for a family member or a friend. A ageing population and informal care arrangements are becoming more common, as families look for ways to care for their older relatives. Previous research has shown that providing informal care can have an effect on a carers ability to sustain paid work and can affect their health.
This new research from Erasmus University Rotterdam, compares the experiences of informal carers in the UK and the Netherlands to see whether different long-term care systems have an impact on carers health. Both the UK and the Netherlands have a similar share of dependent elderly people within their populations, but they are very different in terms of how much money each country spends on long-term care provision. The Netherlands has a universal and comprehensive long-term care provision, which provides care to everyone who needs it irrespective of age or income. The system is publicly funded. In contrast, in the UK long-term care is organised in a mixed-system combining universal and means-tested benefits where individual income and assets determine whether the cost of care is covered.
In both the UK and the Netherlands informal care is common, with around 17-18% of the population aged 50 years and older identifying themselves as an informal caregiver. The researchers used data from Understanding Society to look at the experience of UK caregivers and a similar dataset from the Netherlands to capture the Dutch population. For those people who provided informal care, they looked at their reported physical and mental health and compared with people of a similar age not providing informal care.
What did the research show?
- That there is a link between the generosity of long-term care systems and the hours of informal care provided. More caregivers in the UK provided more than 10 hours of caring per week compared to those in the Netherlands.
- In both countries, people providing care for more than 20 hours per week experienced large negative mental health effects.
- Caregivers who combine caring with full-time employment also experience large negative mental health effects.
- For people providing less than 10 hours of care per week there was a small physical health benefit to being a caregiver.
The researchers say, “These insights can be used to specifically target support to those caregivers who experience the largest burden: those who provide most hours or care and those experiencing a double burden of care and full-time employment.”
Family and householdsHealth and wellbeing
