IV ISA Forum of Sociology (February 23-28, 2021)

231

Elderly Care: The Global and Local Shifts from Family and State to Community and Market

Abstract Submissions Closed

RC19 Sociology of Poverty, Social Welfare and Social Policy (host committee)

Language: English

Session Type: Oral

Worldwide demographic and socio-economic changes challenge the mode of elderly care provision and policy schemes. Depending on country- and region-specific circumstances, large variations can be found around the world, in particular with regard to care responsibilities between family, state, market, civil society organizations including international NGOs. With the starting-point of western-oriented high-income countries in Global North since the 1980s and followed by middle-income countries in Asia long-term care policies have been established or restructured embedded in far reaching paradigm shifts in the welfare state in general. The policy schemes are often constructed on a middle level of public support leaving considerable care needs to families or individuals; this can be partly explained by dominating ideas of social investment policies, which are ambivalent in the case of aging. In low-income countries in Global South competition between welfare areas and a strong familialism impede policy schemes, which result in unmet care needs or high burdens for kin and may increase the relevance of local policies, (international) NGOs or the private sector. The session strives to discuss global, but nevertheless local shifts in elderly care from care provision by the family/kin and state to market and community based care in declining and emerging welfare states. We welcome theoretical concepts, empirical analyses of single countries, and cross-country comparisons which contribute to better understanding of the governance, changes in paid, unpaid and volunteer work, the division of labor and access to care going along with the shift from family and state to community and market.