Susanne Heeger-Hertter

The division of responsibilities and organizational structures in the field of long-term care is a subject of much discussion. This is made even more clear by the EU Work-Life Balance Directive of June 2019. In view of the rising pressure of combining work and care, it is important to enable and facilitate the working informal caregiver. In this paper an attempt is made to gain more insight into this issue. We identified the opportunities and risks of an informalization of care and studied how persons in the Netherlands and Germany are being supported to combine the different roles and tasks. The comparison shows that informal care is not only a responsibility of the individual and/or the employer but that the government should play a role in facilitating and enabling working informal caregivers. This can also be defended on efficiency arguments. It is not possible to take out an insurance against the provision of informal care on the private market. Furthermore, providing informal care has negative external effects related to a reduction of labour market participation and the ensuing costs for society.

* This paper is based on a research paper published in Dutch: Heeger, Koopmans 2018, pp. 143–162.

ASJC: 3308, JEL: 

The right to a minimum subsistence level in the Netherlands is covered by a comprehensive network of schemes. All schemes are part of a rights-based system: if the conditions are fulfilled, this creates a right to social assistance benefit. The most important Act is the Participation Act, the main features of which are described in this paper. Attention will be paid to conditions for benefits and the increasingly strict obligations and sanctions. This paper provides insight into some of the consequences of the recently implemented decentralization policy in the Netherlands.