Paying for informal care: a contradictio in terminis?

Abstract

This paper deals with the congruency between care payments and family culture in Flanders (Belgium). Our main point is that the idea of getting the informal care paid for by the care receiver is not supported by a large part of the population, notwithstanding the fact that the system itself enjoys broad support. Therefore we propose to make a distinction between the attitudes of the population towards any state measure that transfers money to the household on the one hand and the concrete practices between care receivers and their informal carers on the other hand. Moreover we propose to make a distinction between co-residents and inter-household care situations because the mode of solidarity is not quite the same in the two different situations.

Keywords:

• care
• care payments
• solidarity
• informal care
• care insurance
• social policy