Policy press

This research moves from the general hypothesis that assistance provided to a person needing support, and the effort needed to articulate work and care may, under certain conditions, become a factor in carers' inequality and vulnerability. The article presents the results of qualitative research conducted in Quebec, Canada, with carers of older people who also have full-time paid employment in the labour market, and on professionals providing these carers with services. It considers how the services offered to carers have been implemented and how they can affect carers' daily lives.

The Global Carework Summit, organised by the Carework Network and hosted by the University of Massachusetts Lowell’s Center on Women and Work, brought together more than 150 attendees from 25 countries at the University of Massachusetts Lowell (UMass Lowell) in the USA during 1–3 June 2017. The Carework Network, formed almost 20 years ago by a small group of sociologists studying care, is an all-volunteer, international organisation of researchers, policymakers and advocates involved in various domains of care work.

It is well understood in Grayson’s book that the programmatic advice promised by its title stands or falls on another question being satisfactorily answered: why be a great employer for working carers? This is duly addressed right at the beginning.

Weicht’s latest book represents a profound reflection on informal care for elderly people from a social-constructivist perspective – a reflection that also provides a thorough account of gendered practices, power relations and contextual constraints in how care norms, practices and relationships are discursively constructed. 

‘Thou shalt not lie’; ‘the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth’. Both morality and the law contain clear statements about the importance of veracity. Yet, as Ginny Russell so eloquently describes, based upon personal experience with her mother in the UK, truth telling in dementia is fraught with problems. The problems are not only ethical, but can also be practical and emotional. They can arise on a daily basis for the family and friends of people with dementia, as well as for care staff and professionals.

I am the daughter and one of the main carers for my 90-year-old mother. My mother was diagnosed with dementia in 2015. In this article, I reflect on dealing with my mother's progressive disability, with a focus on one experience. I explain why I believe withholding the truth is sometimes an acceptable, or even a preferable, course of action. The article illustrates how differing advice and lack of guidance about dementia diagnosis and 'truth-telling' play out in practice.

These are not easy times for carers in England. While English legislation and government policy are more carer-friendly than ever before, resources are under increasing pressure from both the exploding ‘demographic time-bomb’ and ‘austerity’. This has followed the global financial crash of 2008, subjecting the whole of the public sector to significant cuts. [...] If access to formal care has proportionately reduced, we must drive additional value from a more integrated voluntary and statutory sector ‘system’.

Distressing symptoms in dementia are hard to manage for many family carers. This article explores practitioners' perceptions of the barriers to accessing skilled behaviour management support encountered by carers. A survey of cases referred to the English National Health Service (<i>n</i> = 5,360) was followed by in-depth group discussions and practitioner interviews. Data revealed that practitioners focused on care home residents or older people with mental health problems other than dementia, rather than community-dwelling people with dementia and families.

The purpose of this scoping review is to find all existing North American literature on male working carers and compare this information with female working carers. Searches were performed using various databases, published between 1996 and 2016. A total of 506 articles were found and 45 (<i>n</i> = 45) met all inclusion criteria. Five qualitative themes were identified: caregiving characteristics; motives for caring; work impacts; health impacts; and caring in the workplace and coping strategies.

Gender equality is at the centre of government policy agendas around the world. Boosting women’s labour force participation is seen as the key to economic growth and human development in developing economies, and as an important way of managing ageing population crises in advanced welfare states. Yet, there is scant recognition, especially in developing countries, of the significance of care responsibilities in shaping women’s participation in the labour market.