Marjolein Broese van Groenou, department of Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, the Netherlands

The increased demand for long-term care (LTC) and the drastic reforms of the LTC systems in western societies create uncertainty among families. It raises the question whether and how families can provide appropriate LTC for their older relatives and maintain wellbeing of the care recipient, the partner and their adult children. One solution is to share the care in a care network in which partner and children cooperate with publicly and privately paid caregivers. The Dutch FAMCARE project aims to add more insight in how families organize care and how this impacts on their level of wellbeing. Our work shows that care networks are associated with wellbeing of the care recipient.

This symposium adds 1) the perspective of the caregiver, and 2) the robustness of the theoretical models over time. Data are derived from the Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam (1992-2022) and the two ancillary studies on Family Caregiving in 2002 and 2023.

Project leader Marjolein Broese van Groenou will first present a short overview of the FAMCARE project. In the second contribution of the symposium Silvia Klokgieters presents how loneliness and care sufficiency impact the association between care network types and wellbeing of the care recipient in different LTC contexts (1992-2002-2012-2022). Jens Abbing takes a family perspective and shows the interdependence amongst siblings in their considerations to provide care to their parent, comparing findings in 2002 with 2023. In the fourth contribution Joukje Swinkels examines how sharing the care adds to the wellbeing of adult children in the year 2002 and in 2023. Discussion focuses on the empirical variation over historic time and how decreasing generosity of publicly provided care and increasing expectations regarding informal care in the past decades may have impacted our findings.

Papers:

Marjolein Broese van Groenou (VU), Objectives and design of the FAMCARE project (2023-2025) on care networks and wellbeing in families of older adults in the Netherlands

Silvia Klokgieters (VU), How are care networks associated with wellbeing of older care recipients – a comparison over historic time in the Netherlands

Jens Abbing (VU) Sibling influence on adult children’s caregiving to older parents in different time periods in the Netherlands

Joukje Swinkels (VU) Sharing the care: how help from formal and informal caregivers impacts on caregiver’s burden within families in 2001 and in 2023

Discussants:

Tine Rostgard, Roskilde University, Stockholm University