Convenors: Kate Hamblin (University of Sheffield) and Giovanni Lamura (INRCA-IRCCS: National Institute of Health and Science on Ageing; Centre for Socio-Economic Research on Ageing)

This session explores some of the myriad ways time and technology in care arrangements and systems are interconnected. In many countries, technology has been part of policy approaches to promote ‘ageing in place’ and can facilitate the balance between care and paid work for those supporting others (Hassan) and as a means to negotiate spatial distance when caring networks are not co-located. This has implications for care, which technology can render instantaneous, while disrupting its more traditional aspects such as proximity and touch (Lariviere). We are also observing a shift in policy and practice over time as digital and mainstream devices are used in care arrangements, by necessity as analogue solutions become obsolete and as part of a drive for innovation, bringing new challenges for regulation, ethics, privacy and risk (Hamblin) and issues related to the ‘digital divide’ in the skills to use and access to these devices, with implications for practice (O’Loughlin et al.).

The following papers are included, with discussant Professor Andreas Hoff (Zittau-Görlitz University of Applied Sciences):

• Technology and Social Care in a Digital World: UK Policy and Practice Shifts, Kate Hamblin, University of Sheffield, UK.
• Care at a distance? Temporal and spatial dimensions of technology-mediation in care, Matthew Lariviere, University of Sheffield, UK.
• Role of healthcare professionals in supporting digital technology use for successful ageing in place, Kate O’Loughlin, Meryl Lovarini, Lindy Clemson, Ageing and Health Research Group, Faculty of Medicine and Health, The University of Sydney, Australia.
• Current challenges for the deployment of information and communication technology solutions for Informal Carers, Alhassan Yosri Ibrahim Hassan, NRCA-IRCCS, Centre for Socio-Economi​c Research on Ageing, Italian National Institute of Health & Science on Ageing, Ancona and Department of Economics and Social Sciences, Faculty of Economics “Giorgio Fuà”, Università Politecnica delle Marche, Ancona, Italy.

Convenor: Andrea Doucet, Brock University

In many countries, the COVID-19 pandemic has led to what many commentators are calling a ‘she-cession’ where women are reducing their paid work hours and opportunities or leaving their jobs altogether. Although these decisions are negotiated within complex personal and socio-political contexts of gendered commitments and structures of paid work and unpaid care work, for families with young children, the pandemic has revealed, intensified, and exacerbated women’s long-standing responsibilities for care work and domestic life. Time-use studies (surveys and diaries) are currently the most widely used and trusted methodological approach for measuring gender divisions of housework and care. In the past decade there have been considerable methodological advancements in how to study and assess daily time use. At the same time, there is a growing critique of the efficacy of time-use studies for assessing and measuring care responsibilities and a call for attending more to conceptual and methodological complexities in how care time and temporalities are viewed, lived, and experienced by diverse populations. This symposium explores and debates conceptual, methodological, and epistemological issues in assessing and measuring unpaid care work and care responsibilities. It brings together several leading writers on care, gender divisions of housework and care, and time and temporality.

Paper authors and titles:

• Melissa Milkie (University of Toronto, Canada): Parents’ Time “With” versus “For” Children: Social Status Dimensions
• Oriel Sullivan (University College of London, UK): Changing Activities, Housework and Care during Periods of Different Social Restrictions in the UK
• Brenda S.A. Yeoh (National University of Singapore, Singapore): The Critical Temporalities of Serial Migration: Negotiating Care Relations among Migrant-Sending Families in Southeast Asia
• Andrea Doucet (Brock University, Canada): Care responsibilities and time: Methodological, conceptual, and epistemological issues

Discussant: Nancy Folbre (University of Massachusetts, USA)

Convenor: Marjolein Broese van Groenou, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Ageing societies and recent reforms to long-term care (LTC) in many countries are likely to make informal care by kin and nonkin increasingly critical for fulfilling the care needs of older people. To date, it is unknown whether informal care falls disproportionately on disadvantaged populations. The IN-CARE project (a collaboration of Dutch, British, German research teams; http://in-care.fk12.tu-dortmund.de/) examines if and how LTC reforms exacerbate existing social disparities in care use and provision in older age, which fits nicely into the TCC theme of Time and Temporality in Care. To this end, this project compares the socioeconomic status (SES) gradient in formal and informal care across Europe over time. A particular effort is made to include macro-level indicators of LTC systems in cross-level analyses across countries and operationalize these according to the typology of (de)familialization of Saraceno. The first paper presented in this symposium concerns a description of the macro-level database and how it may be used in exploring the macro-micro link in studies on care use. In the second paper, the UK team studied SES-inequality in care receipt across European nations with different care systems; the third paper presented by the German team studied the same question but now among caregivers, and the fourth paper by the Dutch team studies SES-inequalities in care use within the Netherlands over time (1995-2015). The symposium will start off with a short description of the IN-CARE project (2019-2022). Tine Rostgaard will be our discussant.

Individual abstracts

• APPLYING THE TYPOLOGY OF (DE)FAMILIALIZATION TO MACRO-LEVEL INDICATORS OF LONG TERM CARE POLICIES

Ellen Verbakel, Radboud University

This presentation describes the newly created database on long-term care (LTC) indicators created by the IN-Care project and available to other researchers. Following the theoretical contribution of Saraceno (2016), we argue it is important to use more fine-grained distinctions of familism and defamilisation in LTC policies, because the consequences for inequality in care use and provision may differ. In particular, we study supported familism (e.g., informal caregiver support), supported defamilisation through the market (e.g., in-cash benefits for care users), and defamilisation through public provision (e.g., availability of beds in residential care). We constructed indicators for each type of LTC support policy. This presentation (1) outlines the theoretical ideas on the impact of LTC policies on SES inequality in care; (2) describes the LTC indicator dataset created by the IN-Care team, which will become available to other researchers; (3) presents basic descriptive information on the LTC indicators.

• SOCIOECONOMIC INEQUALITIES IN CARE RECEIPT AT OLDER AGES: A COMPARATIVE EUROPEAN STUDY

Ginevra Floridi, Ludovico Carrino & Karen Glaser, King’s College London

As the prevalence of LTC rises in European societies, it is important to evaluate the consequences of different forms of care for the wellbeing of care recipients. Crucially, if the consequences of care for wellbeing vary by socio-economic status (SES), this may lead to greater inequalities in health among adults with care needs. In this study we examine the longitudinal associations between different types of home-care (informal, formal and mixed) and subsequent wellbeing (quality of life and depression) among physically-impaired individuals aged 50 and above. We propose a theoretical model of SES inequalities in the consequences of care for wellbeing, and empirically assess SES differences in the longitudinal associations using data from the SHARE survey. On average, we do not find evidence that informal, formal or mixed care are associated with changes in wellbeing. However, informal and formal care are linked with better outcomes among wealthier – relative to poorer – individuals.

• SOCIOECONOMIC INEQUALITIES IN INFORMAL CARE PROVISION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES FOR THE WELLBEING OF INFORMAL CAREGIVERS ACROSS EUROPE

Nekehia Quashie, Judith Kaschowitz, Christian Deindl & Martina Brandt – TU Dortmund University

We assess socioeconomic inequalities in informal care provision and its consequences for the wellbeing of informal caregivers. The literature states that a lower socio economic status (SES) is linked to a higher probability to give care (at higher intensities) which then leads to a higher caregiving burden. People with lower SES additionally have fewer resources to alleviate caregiving pressures. Thus, they are likely to experience decreased wellbeing compared to those with higher SES. Our analyses based on data from SHARE and ELSA confirm, that individuals with lower SES are indeed more likely to provide care all over Europe. They also report a lower wellbeing than people with higher SES, even if controlling for further important influences. In the next step we investigate longitudinally, if taking over care responsibilities leads to a wellbeing decline and if this decline is more pronounced for people with lower SES.

• SOCIOECONOMIC INEQUALITY IN LONG-TERM CARE: A COMPARISON OF THREE TIME PERIODS IN THE NETHERLANDS

Jens Abbing, Bianca Suanet & Marjolein Broese van Groenou, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

This study aims at investigating to what extent inequalities in the use of formal, informal and privately paid care have changed over time. Data from the Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam (LASA) was used from three points in time (1995, 2005 and 2015) that capture distinct periods in the recent development of the Dutch long-term care system. In particular, the reforms of 2007 and 2015 might have impacted care uses. All participants (N = 1810) were living at home and between the age of 75 and 85 at measurement. The results indicate that, adjusted for health and partner status, formal, informal and privately paid care have decreased over time. Socioeconomic differences in informal care use have increased over time, but no change was found for privately paid or formal care use. These findings suggest that changes in the LTC system and long-term care resources in particular benefit lower socioeconomic groups.