Do Informal Carers Deserve Geater Care? Changes in Social Construction of Informal Carers and Policy Design of Long-term Care in the Czech Republic
Abstract
The article deals with long-term care policy in relation to informal carers from 2005 ahead. It is based on the theoretical and methodological approach of social construction of target population.
By using framework analysis we are looking for relations between long-term care policy design and informal carers' social construction. We found out informal carers are conceived as deserving social group in two parallel frameworks.
First, they are constructed as an invisible social group whose needs are merged to needs of people they care for. Policy measures are aimed at family members are social services for persons they care for and symbolic acknowledgment i.e. tax relieves and other advantages.
Second, informal carers are constructed as an independent social group for who special measures and services are designed. We also identified a third contradictory framework related to austerity measures.
In this framework social construction of informal carers is changing to a less deserving social group. Policy design related to informal carers is related to austerity measures due to economic crisis and social reform, i.e. cuts in social benefits for people caring for small chronically ill children.
It is argued that family carers provide their care from love or intergenerational solidarity.