Social policy

This paper reviews the work-family policy of Bulgaria before and after the transition. Before the transition the family policy was one of earner–carer where women were given support to combine work-force participation with childcare and men were at least encouraged to help with carework. After the transition women's access to help with carework became so limited that the family policy, by default, became one of dual earner, but with extremely high levels of unemployment.

Looks at the situation of family carers in the USA. Discusses how the USA has been slower to recognise the contribution of family carers than in the UK and how they face a more uncoordinated environment.

Italy has one of the highest percentages of older people in Europe, a trend likely to increase faster than elsewhere alongside greater disability. Family support is also weaker through demographic developments and greater female participation in the labour market, and public policies for frail older people are underdeveloped with wide regional variations. The national scheme, the indemnita di accompagnamento (companion payment), is paid to approximately 7.3% of severely disabled people over 65 based on assessment of need.

Taiwan is facing a rapid change in the composition of its population. As the population ages, a greater demand for long-term care services and, in particular, nursing homes is expected. Before deciding who really needs nursing home care, it is important for policy makers to understand the current pattern of utilisation and what factors are associated with entry. This research assesses the relative importance of predisposing, enabling and need factors that lie behind this.

The government once called carers unsung heroes and promised to legislate to improve their lives. Reports on how many of the measures it has taken have been welcomed but extra cash to ease the acute financial difficulties many endure is still in short supply.

The range of government initiatives which involve carers is extremely broad, with the National Carers Strategy alone containing over 70 pledges. The Strategy takes a holistic approach, referring to almost every aspect of a carer's life from transport to work, from care to housing and from pensions to health. The breadth of issues covered in the Strategy means that it can make only passing reference to significant policy initiatives. This article explores these care, work and cash initiatives to examine in more depth whether this apparent coherence stand up to closer scrutiny.

Mark Ivory investigates current thinking among policy makers on the economics of providing more support to long-term carers.

This paper introduces the Special Issue of four empirical studies on the provision of family support to older people that have been written members of the Family Support for Older People: Determinants and Consequences (FAMSUP) network. They have in common the use of individual-level data and recognition of the importance of demographic forces, cultural variations and public policy in shaping patterns of elder care. The four papers are also explicitly comparative, and emphasise both between- and within-country differences.

Feminism rather than gerontology characterises this book but the substantive issues lie within the field of gerontology and the shift in the boundaries of paid and unpaid work at the end of the twentieth and in the early twenty-first centuries. Cash payments for care are a possible method of ensuring care and citizenship. The chapters raise issues of long-term care funding, the positions of users, caregivers and care workers in the care relationship, how care work could be professionalised and support for informal carers.

The thesis pursued in this article is that an accelerating interest in elder abuse is central to understanding modern care policy as a social phenomenon. It will be argued that the 'discovery' of elder abuse legitimates practice in which the state monitors and co-ordinates but does not intervene. This has led to a social situation that has radically transformed social welfare of its traditional rationale as 'caregiver'. Simultaneously, informal care has become the centrepiece of social policy following the adoption of market forces to community care policies in the UK and elsewhere.