volunteering

Background: Informal caregivers face risks of social isolation. Given the high prevalence of informal caregivers in Europe, a considerable proportion of the population are also former caregivers. The Finnish Expert Caregiver intervention sought to train former caregivers to become volunteers aim-ing to support current caregivers through mainly peer support.

The growth of life expectancy in Central Eastern Europe and increase in the number of older people in that region are the consequences of changes in the 1990s period, connected to transition from the communism into a market economy. Central Eastern Europe is already facing consequences of fast ageing and insufficient development of state health care and social services. Those result in gaps in the provision of end-of-life care and overburden of family caregivers.

This article seeks to understand two puzzling findings from a comparative study of volunteer care work: that volunteers in Denmark are perceived to be cost-adding, while volunteers in Australia are perceived to be cost-saving; and that volunteers in Australia are perceived to be better than paid workers, while volunteers in Denmark are considered second-best to paid workers. Using a 'cultures of care' framework, this article explores whether these articulations reflect on culturally determined care ideals. The findings suggest that different cultures of care exist.