Welfare state contract and family solidarity: Do informal carers prefer more welfare state support?

Abstract

Since the late 20th century, a combination of sociodemographic changes and increasing costs of pensions, health and social care challenged the intergenerational welfare contract. Besides, governments have been substituting more parts of care services for informal care. Given this reality, little is known to what extent informal cares prefer a higher government responsibility. Nonetheless, they demonstrate solidarity towards other generations through their actions. In this article, we question whether the intensity of informal caregiving, expressed in hours a week, and age group affects preferences towards welfare distributions and policies supporting informal caregivers. To do so, we have used a unique dataset of stratified, representative data about intergenerational exchanges between individuals in Belgium. We only see a significant effect of high intensity caregiving on general welfare state support. For the policy that targets informal caregivers we see no differences between informal caregivers and non-carers. We argue that informal care status or age cannot fully grasp people's preferences of welfare state support, but lies in the intersection of individual characteristics. A recent study about informal caregivers in Flanders highlighted significant differences in support needs across age groups. Notably, the persons at working age, would feel most helped by reconciliation measures such as paid informal care leave. Moreover, support needs correlated with the intensity of caregiving, as those providing 10 h or more expressed a greater need for financial support, work-life balance policies and help from professional services (Bracke et al. Zorgenquête 2021: Inhoudelijk rapport, 2022). Recognizing the importance of different support needs of informal caregivers, underscores the necessity for comprehensive approaches in family and informal care policies to address both caregiver and recipient needs effectively.