Unmet care needs are usually defined in terms of receiving sufficient help in instrumental activities and activities of daily living. Research on unmet needs is mostly based on quantitative data. Older persons' and informal carers' views and experiences have received less attention. In this paper, we rely on a definition of unmet needs which includes both unmet needs due to insufficient care and those situations where informal carers experience undue strain. Using theory-driven content analysis, we examine community-dwelling older adults' and their informal carers' experiences of unmet needs: what kind of unmet needs they have, why and in which ways these needs are left unmet and what would they want to do to improve the situation. The data consists of interviews gathered in Austria, Finland and Slovenia. Results of the analysis reveal that unmet needs are largely psychosocial in nature. The predominating task-oriented care systems often do not consider these as care needs. Using methods of qualitative content analysis, we conclude that care users' unmet psychosocial needs are related to lacking a personal relationship with care workers; means to maintain or develop social contacts and pursue activities and interests; and adequate home care services or respite care. Excessive responsibilities are put on informal carers as they top up and fill in the insufficient care. This study contributes to a broader understanding of unmet care needs: the relational aspects of care and the universal nature of psychosocial care needs should be addressed in care services.

Objectives: We present a dynamic view of gender patterns in informal caregiving across Europe in a context of sociodemographic transformations. We aim to answer the following research questions: (a) has the gender gap in informal caregiving changed; (b) if so, is this due to changes among women and/or men; and (c) has the gender care gap changed differently across care regimes? Methods: Multilevel growth curve models are applied to gendered trajectories of informal caregiving of a panel sample of 50+ Europeans, grouped into 5-year cohorts and followed across 5 waves of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe survey, stratified by sex and adjusted for several covariates. Results: For men in cohorts born more recently, there is a decrease in the prevalence of informal care outside the household, whereas cohort trajectories for women are mostly stable. Prevalence of care inside the household has increased for later-born cohorts for all without discernible changes to the gender care gap. Gender care gaps overall widened among later-born cohorts in the Continental cluster, whereas they remained constant in Southern Europe, and narrowed in the Nordic cluster. Discussion: We discuss the cohort effects found in the context of gender differences in employment and care around retirement age, as well as possible demographic explanations for these. The shift from care outside to inside the household, where it mostly consists of spousal care, may require different policies to support carers, whose age profile and possible care burden seem to be increasing.

Informal caregiving for older family members is increasingly recognized and encouraged by public policies. This is even more the case in familialistic countries such as Austria. This article aims to examine the role of the family in the care culture of a familialistic care regime through the experiences of care dyads combining upwards intergenerational family care and formal care services. The analysis is based on framework analysis of 48 face-to-face interviews, almost all conducted separately, with 24 care dyads of older care users (average age 86 years old with moderate to high care needs) and their main informal carers in Austria combining formal and informal care. A quarter of caregivers and care receivers were male. We identified four different ideals (family care, preferences, involvement, gendered care) which were distributed across different groups of Socio-Economic Status (SES) and described by women and men.

Live-in care, provided by mainly female migrants, has developed as a do-it-yourself welfare mechanism—hardly regulated, with undefined working times, singular labour relations and widely untraceable cash flows. Migrant carers are isolated, working in a ‘grey’ area, torn between the family in which they are working and the individual person in need of care, and very often they are also dependent on brokering agencies. The aim of this contribution is therefore to describe and analyse how the pandemic has made hidden inequalities more visible in connection with the specificities of live-in migrant care in Austria, Italy and Spain. Findings are based on a brief scoping review, including national media coverage. Results are described in terms of national caveats and strategies to respond to challenges triggered by the pandemic. Mitigating short-term strategies were implemented under pressure and at short notice, mainly influenced by the national framework conditions of live-in migrants in the respective countries. In spite of upcoming political debates regarding the regularisation of live-in care, including issues of wages and working conditions, the visibility of migrant live-in care remains tightly connected to the further development of care regimes and the acknowledgement of unpaid work as a precondition for gender equality and equal opportunities in a European and subsequently in a global dimension.

Old age disabilities are more common among women than men, and adverse socioeconomic conditions are associated with a higher prevalence of disabilities among older adults. The goal of this study was to complete a mapping review of the available evidence assessing the extent to which the observed sex differences in older adults’ disabilities can be attributed to sex differences in socioeconomic status. We searched three databases for articles published between 2009 and 2019, and after screening and looking at eligibility criteria, 6 articles were included in the review. For those studies that did not directly analyse the contribution of socioeconomic conditions, we used the ‘difference method’ to estimate the proportion of the sex gap in disabilities among older adults that could be attributed to socioeconomic conditions. Our review demonstrated that women generally have a higher prevalence of disabilities than men. In several studies, these differences could be partly attributed to sex differences in the distribution of socioeconomic conditions. We also find great elasticity in the magnitude of both the sex gap in disabilities and in the proportion that could be attributed to differences in socioeconomic conditions.