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Differences and similarities in monetary benefits for informal care in old and new EU member states
Author(s) -
Riedel Monika,
Kraus Markus
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
international journal of social welfare
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.664
H-Index - 47
eISSN - 1468-2397
pISSN - 1369-6866
DOI - 10.1111/ijsw.12157
Subject(s) - member states , incentive , context (archaeology) , family member , member state , business , eu countries , social benefits , public economics , international economics , economics , demographic economics , european union , economic policy , medicine , market economy , quality (philosophy) , paleontology , philosophy , family medicine , epistemology , biology
This article presents an overview of the monetary benefits available in the context of long‐term care provided by family or other informal carers in 11 old and 10 new EU member states. All but one country in our sample offer at least some monetary benefits that can be used to help finance informal care. Old EU member states tend to direct benefits to individuals in need of care, whereas new EU member states place more emphasis on benefits for carers. Among new EU member states, monetary benefits are less often means‐tested and tend to be lower compared with benefits in old EU member states. Because social policies in many countries increasingly rely on monetary benefits rather than on benefits in kind and because the share of informal care in the overall provision of elderly care will scarcely decline, monetary benefit incentives for labour market participation need to be carefully monitored.