Socio-demographic changes and care poverty in late-life: risks, answers and the emblematic case of childless older adults
The project focuses on the risk of late-life care poverty and the ways in which this is influenced by current changes in the demography of families and in family caregiving. “The end of familialism?” a ims to: (a) empirically investigate the risk of care poverty among older adults in Italy and explore how it is influenced by changes in the provision of informal care by family members and by gender, socio-economic and health inequalities. A particular focus will be placed on the risk of late-life care poverty linked to the crisis in intergenerational care relationships stemming from the growing number of childless older adults and the decline in the propensity of children to provide informal care to older fragile parents; (b) understand how the care crisis, in its quantitative figures and qualitative implications, is framed in the public debate and policy agenda; (c) identify ways of mitigating the risk of late-life care poverty by analysing good practices in Italy and other European countries; (e) stimulate a public and policy debate, and raise civil society’s awareness, on issues of late-life care poverty and the changes affecting family caregiving to older people.
The research is organised into four parts.
- Analysing Istat Multiscopo survey data (https://www.istat.it/it/archivio/91926) and SHARE data (https://share-eric.eu/), the research explores the relation between late-life care poverty risk and different family-based care arrangements.
- Focusing on childless older adults the reasearch investigates their risk of care poverty, as well as the perceptions and strategies of young-old adults (aged 60 to 70) in relation to their future care needs and resources. The risk of care poverty for this group, in Italy, in explored by analysing Istat Multiscopo survey data. Moreover, in-depth biographical interviews reconstruct individual perceptions, expectations and strategies.
- Social representations of the care deficit and the crisis of familialism in the public debate and policy agenda, in Italy, are explored, based on qualitative content analysis of documents produced in three distinct public arenas: the media discourse, technical debates and political discussions.
- A policy analysis of good practices from Italy and other countries identifies ways of enhancing the care capacity of post-familialistic societies.