Annapurna Pandey, University of California, Santa Cruz

Elisabeth Schroeder-Butterfill, University of Southampton

This panel seeks papers on the emerging and evolving relationship between family and paid care for older people in context of the Global South, with an emphasis on qualitative research and cross- cultural, comparative perspectives.

In most countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America, families play the leading role in the provision of care for older adults, and this is often underpinned by powerful norms promoting familism and eschewing paid care. Yet demographic, economic, cultural and epidemiological changes are making it more difficult for families to provide care single-handedly. For example, smaller families, migration, changing gender roles, the need to combine paid and domestic work or precariously juggle several paid or caring roles, preferences for greater intergenerational independence, and increasingly complex health needs in later life all contribute to pressures on familial care provision. At the same time, there is a burgeoning ‘care workforce’ offering care services which range from highly formalised care industries to informal or semi-formal arrangements involving care support in exchange for payment. This thematic panel is interested in exploring the nexus between family care and paid care from a comparative, international perspective, focusing on context of the Global South. We hope to examine drivers and familial negotiations giving rise to the involvement of paid care; challenges, successes, and concerns in the relationship between families and care workers; working conditions and rights of paid carers that are employed by families; the role of information technology in facilitating collaborative care between paid and family carers; normative shifts around the acceptability and desirability of relying on paid care alongside or instead of familial care; evolving roles and understandings of familial care in connection with the growing involvement of paid care.