Conceptualizing cash for care: the origins of contemporary debates

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 first chapter summarises the issues involved in the new systems which emerged in the 1990s and the impact of funding regimes, together with the literature which appeared reviewing these policy developments and the policy context. Increased longevity and changes in family structure diminished the number of potential caregivers, particularly in the EU and North America. Containing costs of social care through the funding of retirement pensions and long-term care forms the second major issue [...]