Jacobs, T.

This paper deals with the congruency between care payments and family culture in Flanders (Belgium). Our main point is that the idea of getting the informal care paid for by the care receiver is not supported by a large part of the population, notwithstanding the fact that the system itself enjoys broad support. Therefore we propose to make a distinction between the attitudes of the population towards any state measure that transfers money to the household on the one hand and the concrete practices between care receivers and their informal carers on the other hand.

Research has repeatedly shown that a large number of independently living oldest elderly are cared for by family members, friends or neighbours. This care is given either in combination with professional home care or without and it obviously reduces the financial burden for the state's health and social security system. Several authors suggest that, although very high levels of informal care are still present in Europe, this pattern will change in the near future. In view of monitoring the trends, we need sound and standardised procedures of measurement.