The State of Family Caregiving Policy

ABSTRACT

As the population ages and supportive services are increasingly delivered in home- and community-based settings, greater demands are placed on family caregivers. This essay introducing the special issue of the Journal of Aging and Social Policy discusses signs of progress on policies to ease the burden on family caregivers. It introduces a series of articles that reflect the growing body of research on caregiver-related policy actions. These actions range from expanding access to paid family leave and payment for providing care, to ensuring access to better data about family caregivers and improving the post- hospital discharge experiences of rural and underserved caregivers. It also explores a major conundrum around caregiving policy – why progress on family caregiving policy has been so slow, despite its clear importance to the health and welfare of those who receive supports, as well as to those providing supports. In addition, the essay discusses developments, such as Biden administration actions and the RAISE Family Caregiver Advisory Council, indicating that the political dynamic around caregiving has changed, concluding that this is a uniquely hopeful time for family caregiver-related policy.

KEYWORDS:

• Family caregivers
• informal care
• long-term care
• social policy

Key Points

• Policy around family caregiving has long been considered stalled, with few significant advances.

• There has been significant state- and federal-level policy activity over recent years, reflecting the increasing political salience of the issue.

• State actions discussed in this issue include family and medical leave policies and payment for family caregivers of Medicaid recipients.

• Federal actions include the RAISE Family Caregiver Advisory Council.

• Other content in the special issue reports original empirical research and perspectives on a range of issues relevant to caregiver policy.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.