Interhousehold financial and care transfers. practices versus norms and attitudes towards delivering and receiving care

Marta Styrc, Warsaw School of Economics
Izabela Grabowska, Warsaw School of Economics

The aim of the study is to analyze financial and care transfers in informal networks of support and their meaning for households and individuals. People’s attitudes towards delivering and receiving care are also a subject of the study. Data from two surveys conducted in 2005 and 2007 make it possible to fulfill existing gaps in research on informal transfers of money and care in Poland. The first survey on ‘Economic, educational and family activities’ was carried out on the Labor Force Survey sub-sample of 3,840 households in the second quarter of 2005. The second one ‘Delivering care and social benefits as barriers to the economic activity of older working-age women’ was conducted in the third quarter of 2007 on the sample of 7,000 persons aged 50-65 (women) and 55-70 (men). The survey data were used to analyze financial support, provided and received, as well as care delivered by household members and care received by households. Analyses of norms and attitudes towards care cover such topics as: early retirement entitlement for care-givers, responsibility for delivering care, demand for care, reasons for not using institutional care, preferences for care organization. Knowledge on functioning of informal networks in care provision is of a special relevance in Poland also due to a strong underdevelopment of institutional care for children and dependent adults. Care obligations can be considered as a reason for reducing labour force participation and as barrier to compete effectively in the labour market. Therefore, demands for increases in employment rates of women and older workers in Poland, both at low levels in the EU, may lead to remarkable cuts in informal care provision. That possible development confronted with ageing needs simultaneous progress in developing institutional care. These changes are strongly affected by cultural context, reflected in norms and attitudes towards care.