Should I Stay or Should I Go? Combining Work and Care for an Older Parent in Italy

Abstract

Given the growth of care needs, the emphasis on informal care and the increasing labour force participation of women and senior workers, balancing employment and elderly care responsibilities is a crucial challenge. This qualitative study explores how and with what implications Italian senior workers combine work with care for older people. The results indicate that the impact of care responsibilities on work is limited and that employment has a buffer effect on overwhelming care responsibilities. By contrast the implications for private and family life are considerable. The conditions and mechanisms that support these results are discussed.

Keywords:

• Conciliation
• Elderly Care
• Informal Care
• Female Employment
• Italy

Notes

[1] Unfortunately, the survey does not provide information on the intensity and type of caregiving.

[2] The figures include public and private (non-profit and for-profit) institutions.

[3] Legal migrants are 4.3 million, i.e. seven per cent of the country's overall population (Caritas 2009).

[4] The study is part of the European comparative project ‘Workers under Pressure and Social Care’ (WOUPS) coordinated by Claude Martin and Blanche Le Bihan and financed by the French Ministry of Labour (MIRE) and the French National Research Agency (ANR, 2006–9 programme) (Le Bihan & Martin 2009).

[5] We are aware of the fact that qualitative data are collected only in two northern Italian regions may have an influence. Although interviews in other regions of the country might yield somewhat different percentages in work–care arrangement strategies, we think that the general processes and tensions of changes are likely to be similar.

[6] The main (also non-cohabiting) caregiver of a ‘severely handicapped’ adult who lives at home is entitled to three days of paid leave per month according to national legislation on disability (Law 104/1992). Workers taking days of leave receive their full salary, and all pension contributions are paid.