Convenors-

Professor Misa Izuhara School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol, UK

Professor Karen West School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol, UK

With social care in crisis, there is an urgent need to look at alternatives to traditional social care models provided in individuals’ homes, specialised housing or care facilities for older people. This thematic panel will explore innovative care practices – that supplement traditional family care or formal social care – in collaborative, collective and shared housing, and also community models such as care co-operatives. It aims to consider how such housing and other alternatives can support ‘ageing in place’, reduce isolation, and enhance the quality of life of older residents through practices such as mutual aid, participatory governance, and collective decision-making. By doing so, it aims to bring the themes of collaboration and housing more fully into the debates around social care.

Alternative housing options in later life sit somewhere between individualised living in people’s own home and specialised housing with care for older people. ‘Collaborative housing’ for example refers to a broad range of self-organised, self-managed and community-orientated forms of housing including cohousing, housing cooperatives and self-governed retirement communities. Such models are often united by their commitment to a set of principles and practices around social interaction and mutual support alongside shared spaces. Pooling resources and exercising agency may also be key features of housing alternatives.

In this context, the thematic panel aims to examine themes such as: benefits and challenges of growing older in collaborative and alternative housing from a care perspective; theorising different care models in different forms of alternative housing; good ‘housing and care’ practices; and fostering collaboration in existing ‘housing with care’ environments. As innovation and collaboration are key themes, the panel also welcomes research into ‘care co-operatives’ – service organisations that are mutually owned and managed by the recipients of care (and also often by the carers themselves) – and which potentially complement or supplement the existing care and support provided in communities.

Detail coming soon

Convenors-Ricardo Rodrigues, Lisbon School of Economics and Management, University of Lisbon and Norah Keating, Centre for Innovative Ageing, Swansea University

Recent theoretical and empirical research has begun to illustrate trajectories of care across time, including pathways into care and diverse patterns of care across the broad sweep of the lives of carers. This life course perspective positions care as a life course domain that intersects with other life courses including families and employment. It augments the considerable body of knowledge of care work and consequences of family carers at particular points in time and in reference to a single care episode such as caring for a parent, spouse or child with disabilities. Taking a life course perspective allows for interrogating questions of how gender, social class and ethnicity might influence cumulative advantage/disadvantage across the life course. This work on pathways into and across care has been grounded in discourses and data from the global north and in pathways of family care. Little is known about care pathways of people in the global south or of the ways in which paid carers enter into care work and how their care careers evolve or are truncated over time. 

We invite papers from diverse regions and from scholars at all career stages that focus on experiences or activities of family carers or care workers across time. Topics may include cumulative disadvantages across the life-course or how care transitions are influenced by interactions with family or employment.  We welcome papers that engage with questions of pathways into paid care or precarity of their employment. Empirical research may be underpinned by either qualitative or quantitative research methods, but should in any case be framed by theoretical concepts and demonstrate how it contributes to strengthening the theoretical knowledge base around care across the life course.

Convenors- Valeria Cappellato and Eugenia Mercuri, Dipartimento di Culture, Politica e Società – Università degli Studi di Torino

Does care provided to persons with disabilities or to older people, both by formal welfare
services and informally by relatives and others, invariably reduce them to dependent subjects?

Feminists and care ethics scholars (Fineman 2004; Butler 2017) had put forward a fundamental critique of the ideal of independency in human life without thereby discounting autonomy as a moral value, even if the individual choice could be interpreted as a widely celebrated ideal (Mol 2008). In fact, it is possible to look at the worlds of ‘carers’ and those for whom they ‘care’ as interconnected, and speak of interdependency to express the fact that our reality occurs within relations between people, along heterogeneous (and unequal) life courses, in different contexts.

Yet, as Fineman argued two decades ago in The Autonomy Myth. A Theory of Dependency
(2004), political rhetoric and popular ideology have become so fixated on the myth that citizens should be autonomous that they fail to recognize the inevitability and normality of dependency. Despite said inevitability, the autonomy myth continues to guide not only care policies but also our lives and the way individuals perceive themselves. Therefore, life transitions that might cause or augment a need for care, such as insurgence or worsening of health issues or disabilities, moving to a home for the aged, death of a significant other, or even getting a pension instead of a wage or receiving some sort of social support, can carry along a (stigmatizing) perception and experience of ‘dependency’.

On this backdrop, if care practices and policies based on the dichotomy ‘dependent cared
for/independent caregiver’ contributed to reproduce and strengthen the autonomy myth, other strategies could be put in place to integrate the concept of interdependency in care relations.

During the session, we aim to discuss how the concepts of dependence, independence and
interdependence are reflected in care practices/ experiences/ discourses/ policies with a focus on older people and disabled people.

This thematic panel calls for contributions dealing with disabilities, aging processes, life course transitions and care. We especially welcome papers that address:
– ableism, ageism, and constructions of dependency
– public discourses that build the idea of older adults and/or disabled people as active or passive citizens
– the perception of older adults and/or disabled people regarding their autonomy/ dependence/ independence/ interdependence
– events along the life course that help shape – or construct – the transition from independent to dependent
– care practices that challenge ableism, ageism, and constructions of dependency
– policies and care services that (de)construct the myth of autonomy
– the role and influence of other structural dimensions, such as gender, class, or ethnicity, on the definition of care relations as based on dependency or interdependency

The session is open to the contribution of different disciplines (sociology, anthropology,
political science, economics, law) and different methodological and analytical perspectives.

Convenors- Dr. Jason Danely, Oxford Brookes University and Dr. Carlos Chirinos, Rovira i Virgili University/Oxford Brookes University

This panel presents research on men who provide paid or unpaid care for frail older or disabled adults in diverse national and cultural contexts. It has long been established that women provide the majority of informal care worldwide, and as a result, feminist scholars and activists have been leaders in critical political debates on how to preserve the ethical value of care while dismantling patriarchal systems and gendered oppression. While these debates have evolved to recognise intersectional, queer, crip and other forms of care, the experiences of men who care can sometimes become marginalized or less visible. Consequently, representations of masculinity dominated by violence and emotional distance remain prevalent and unchallenged. This panel will consider how the themes of boundaries, transitions and crisis can reveal transformations in gendered subjectivities emerging the wake of the crisis of care in ageing societies, which presses more men into roles as carers. 

Men who care often grapple with boundaries of normative or internalised gendered assumptions, expectations, and the relative lack of positive role models or public representation. As more men provide a greater range of care tasks, however, evidence has emerged that suggests that not only can men provide quality care, but that in doing so, they contest the boundaries of gender norms in ways that may benefit all genders. Men are increasingly becoming primary carers for older and disabled parents or spouses and using that opportunity to learn new embodied skills and sensitivities. Men have also taken roles as paid or unpaid carers outside of families, contesting boundaries between public and private domains of care. This panel presents diverse empirical studies of men who care in order to demonstrate emerging fluid conceptions of masculinity arising in spaces less conspicuous to the public eye, but which provide important insights about how men’s care can become reimagined in both public consciousness and policies on care.

Convenors- Majella Kilkey (University of Sheffield, UK) & Loretta Baldassar (Edith Cowan University, Australia)

Care regimes¹ captures the societal organisation of care and its underpinning norms and values on what constitutes appropriate care. Initially analysed as contained within the boundaries of nation states, care regimes are nowadays characterised as transnational. Such understanding entails a reframing away from multiple bounded and discrete national care systems, towards a global care system linking places and people across an unequal world, and comprising global and sub-global hierarchies and networks of boundary-spanning connections, interactions and effects. 

Understanding care regimes as transnational requires attending to their intersections with migration regimes – ‘the migration policies and their outcomes that collectively reflect the admission and settlement of foreign-born people over time’². Migration regimes are shaped by hierarchical and unequal historical and contemporary connections between nation states, through colonial and postcolonial ties, trade arrangements, and other economic and political associations. 

The care-migration systems nexus – the complex and dynamic assemblages of care and migration policies and practices, formal and informal, shaping the transnational social fields of migrants’ lives – captures care and migration regime intersections. Scholarship on the care-migration systems nexus centres the perspectives of the ‘Global North’. To the extent that the ‘Global South’ is included, it is mainly in relation to the ‘care drain’ resulting from the outward migration of care-workers.

We invite papers centring the ‘Global South’ in analysis of the care-migration systems nexus. Areas of enquiry include, care-related migration to and within the ‘Global South’, care arrangements and relationships of return migrants to the ‘Global South’ and care arrangements and relationships of migrants from the ‘Global South’ residing in countries of the ‘Global North’. While we expect papers will be mainly empirical, we will consider conceptual and policy papers. Panellists will be invited to contribute to an Edward Elgar Handbook on Migration and Care (co-editors Kilkey and Baldassar). 

References

¹ Bettio, F. and J. Plantenga (2004), ‘Comparing care regimes in Europe’, Feminist Economics, 10 (1), 85–113.

² Boucher, A. and J. Gest (2018), Crossroads. Comparative Immigration Regimes in a World of Demographic Change, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pg.4

Convenors-

Nicola Brimblecombe, Care Policy and Evaluation Centre, London School of Economics and Political Science

Lina Van Aerschot, Centre of Excellence in Research on Ageing and Care, University of Jyväskylä

Teppo Kröger, Centre of Excellence in Research on Ageing and Care, University of Jyväskylä

For older and disabled people, care needs can be met with the help of their families and other unpaid or informal carers, long-term care services and personal assistance, or not met at all. National care policies, social policy systems, and individual socio-economic resources determine whether care services are publicly provided and/or privately purchased. Informal care may be a preference, a must, or not an option at all. The ways in which care and services are organised and allocated may enhance and build equality related to care and assistance, or create further boundaries and inequalities. 

Unmet care needs may be related to unavailability of services or informal care, lack of awareness or accessibility of services, high user fees, or other barriers. Furthermore, care needs may remain unmet when help and assistance is received but they are not extensive enough, the quality is inadequate, or they are not provided at the right time. Individual care needs change over the lifecourse and unmet need and inequalities in care provision can have enduring consequences for unpaid carers and disabled and older people. Social divisions such as socio-economic background, gender, and health status are also related to disadvantaged positions regarding care. Unmet care needs have recently also been analysed using the concept of care poverty pointing out that it is a societal and political issue. 

This thematic panel calls for papers dealing with inequalities in care. We welcome especially papers that connect care inequalities to wider questions within social and public policy. The topics may be related to social inequalities among older or disabled people or between different age groups, or to unmet needs, care poverty, vulnerable positions, social divisions, inadequate care, and different mechanisms that lead to a disadvantaged position and/or difficulties in having care needs met. We also welcome papers that consider these issues over the lifecourse.

The institutional settings and transitions of care systems and care policies are also relevant to this thematic panel as well as the practices of care arrangements. How are equal rights to care enhanced – or are they? To what extent do policies and service arrangements promote equality or reinforce inequality? What is the role of informal and unpaid care in decreasing or, on the contrary, creating or maintaining inequality? 

Convenors-

Yueh-Ching Chou, Institute of Health and Welfare Policy, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taipei, Taiwan
Teppo Kröger, Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy, University of Jyväskylä, Finland

In disability studies, geographical and social boundaries can refer to place and space, and social accessibility, social inclusion or social exclusion. This thematic panel bring together research on the disability policies and services from all geographical and social boundaries. We invite both conceptual papers and empirical studies related to one of the following questions. To what extent and how are disabled people supported by different care and disability policies and care services and personal assistance, including both formal and informal support systems and migrant care workers, and what are their impacts on the lives of disabled people and on those of formal/informal carers/assistants? What can we learn from social care policies and the impacts of these policies on disabled people when we focus on the different welfare states, cultures and social contexts? What is the impact of COVID-19 on disabled people while comparing it with the impact on non-disabled people? And what can we learn from disabled people’s experiential knowledge who in some societies have faced exclusion and isolation not just during the pandemic but during their entire life course?

This thematic panel aims at contributing to the issues of geographical and social boundaries addressing the impact of social care policies and services on disabled people and related groups (e.g. family/friends, formal care workers, migrant care workers). Papers on all such debates, discourses and studies are welcome in this thematic panel.

Convenors- Emily Burn and Catherine Needham, University of Birmingham

Many countries have undertaken wide-ranging reforms of social care for older and disabled people in recent years. Examples include the National Disability Insurance Scheme in Australia, long-term care reform in South Korea, and the proposed National Care Service in Scotland. Such reforms require attention to multiple elements, including funding, assessment and eligibility, workforce, boundaries with other formal systems (e.g. health) and with informal support networks. Studying large-scale reforms therefore requires attention to the ‘policy mix’ (Carey et al, 2019; Needham and Hall, forthcoming), and to how policies intersect in complex and emergent ways. Rather than assuming that reform strands are complementary, we need to recognise and study their interdependence. For example, funding reforms may reshape provision in ways that undermine other policy objectives (e.g. better pay and conditions for workers).  

Such analyses also have to recognise wider sources of system flux, which shape policy choices and interdependencies. These can be rapid (e.g. Covid-19) or slower (population ageing). Analyses of whole system change also require an awareness of transitions in the experiences and expectations of the people who give and receive care, which shapes understanding of whether or not care policies are ‘working’. National policy systems are also influenced by, and will influence, system change in other national contexts through the complex ‘bordering’ work that goes on in relation to care (Yuval-Davies et al, 2008). 

We invite papers which consider the interrelationship between aspects of care system reforms. Abstracts should indicate the country context/s being studied, which reforms are covered in the paper, and what can be learned from taking a whole system perspective to policy reform. Whilst we expect that the panel papers will be mainly empirical, we will also consider papers which explore what policy theory or methods can offer to studies of the interaction between concurrent care reforms.  

Convenors- Johanna Fischer and Heinz Rothgang, University of Bremen, Germany
Simone Leiber, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany

In the last decades, many countries globally have introduced and reformed public policies for long-term care (LTC). Resulting LTC systems differ not only regarding their underlying principles and institutional arrangements, but also concerning their generosity, both at the macro- and individual level. For instance, the inclusiveness – that is who receives under which conditions LTC benefits – can be determined by multiple eligibility criteria such as age, income, and level of care needs. Furthermore, the scope of benefits available in a given LTC scheme crucially determines which type and how much support care recipients (and care givers) can expect. Consequently, assessing the generosity of LTC policies is highly relevant in that it constitutes one important factor shaping the experience and quality of care (giving). Furthermore, by diving into the analysis of entitlement and eligibility criteria as well as benefits provides insights in how care is concretely shaped by political decisions and administrative processes and which transitions can be observed.

The thematic panel aims to bring together research on the generosity of LTC systems worldwide, including aspects of coverage, inclusiveness, and scope of benefits. We invite both conceptual and empirical papers addressing one of the three sets of questions outlined below. Firstly, how can generosity be assessed and measured, specifically across countries? In particular, which possibilities are there to compare needs assessments cross-nationally? We especially invite contributions exploring the usability of model cases or vignette studies in this respect. Secondly, how do different LTC systems compare empirically in terms of their inclusiveness and scope of benefits? Can we observe trade-offs between these two dimensions? How do different types of LTC systems compare in terms of generosity? Thirdly, we invite contributions which investigate how aspects of generosity are addressed politically when designing and reforming LTC systems. Which factors shape the type and extent of generosity of LTC policies? How important are different kinds of crisis contexts or crisis perceptions as drivers or constraints for LTC generosity?