Equity Choices and Long-Term Care Policies in Europe by August Oesterle

Author:August Oesterle [Oesterle, August]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781351815185
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2017-07-05T00:00:00+00:00

Table 4.3

Legal obligations to care between family members

Family / state responsibility to care between family members represented by …

Legal obligation between extended family Italy ,Portugal, Spain

Legal obligation between parents and children Austria ,Belgium, France, Germany,

Greece, Luxembourg

No clear state responsibility Ireland, United Kingdom

Clear state responsibility Denmark, Finland, Netherlands,

Norway, Sweden

Source: Millar, Warman (1996)

Italy, Portugal and Spain represent those countries with an extended family obligation to care for each other or to support each other economically. That is, in these countries public support is based on testing to what extent kin is available to support family members. This is also true for countries like Austria, Germany, France or Greece. However, in these countries family obligations are restricted to a narrower concept of family including spouses and children. In addition, increasingly, differences occur in the extent to which these obligations are enforced as new schemes of support evolved (in particular payment for care programmes) and as the perception of long-term care as a public or as a private obligation might differ quite considerably from the legal obligation.

The third group is represented by Ireland and the United Kingdom. In these countries there is no legal obligation to care for close relatives or to support them with economic means. Other than in the two groups just described, long-term care is more widely seen as a public responsibility. At the same time state responsibility is not clearly defined in these countries. In the actual design of long-term care policies family obligations occur on a discretionary level. The fourth group of clear state responsibility is represented by the Nordic countries and – although less explicit – in the Netherlands. Although there is a considerable amount of family support in these countries there is a clear public obligation to support citizens in need of care.

The fact that even in the Nordic countries it is the informal sector that offers the bulk of care-giving (see chapter 2.1) contradicts to some extent such a clear-cut distinction between the countries. Nevertheless, it might be expected that equity choices in public long-term care policies are quite distinct in countries representing the four clusters.

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