Cash-for-Care Schemes and the Changing Role of Elderly People’s Informal Caregivers in France and Italy

In response to the ageing of the population and increasing care needs, long-term care has become a key policy issue in all European countries. The introduction of cash-for-care schemes — allowances provided to elderly dependent people and their families which they can either pass on to informal caregivers or use to employ a paid caregiver — has represented a key instrument and a common trend in European countries since the 1990s (Ungerson, 2005a, b; Ungerson and Yeandle, 2007). Various factors have been identified in the literature to explain this common evolution, such as the incapacity of the traditional welfare state to meet individuals' needs, the trend towards marketization or the recognition of (formerly unpaid or cheaper) informal care (Ungerson, 1997, 2005).