Women caregivers of dependent persons in the family context, a social tax or a personal option

Abstract

The research is focused on women caregivers in family settings. Its purpose is to know the ways of life developed by unpaid caregivers of dependent people, and to describe the social environment and the adjustments in family life based on care activities. What characterizes care is that it is a form of unpaid work that is mostly carried out by women. Another way to supplement this type of work is through a salaried job, usually of another woman as a domestic worker. The care that is carried out above all within the framework of dependency, traditionally cared for in the family context. A qualitative methodology was chosen, establishing the female family caregiver as the observation unit, who have at least one dependent elderly person with home care needs in their charge. The semi-structured in-depth interview was used as a technique, and a question guide developed based on the objectives was used as an instrument. The sample consisted of 5 women. Based on the results, the invisibility of the contribution to the family economy of the caregivers is evidenced, and it is naturalized by culturally assuming that it should be so. Also, the precarious condition in which the caregivers live without any assistance, almost all women already with health problems, both physical and mental, which is deepened by the lack of family support in the alternation of responsibility, which exacerbates the situation as the Care practices are presented as irreplaceable, in the absence of care policies built from the four areas of access to well-being: families, the state, the market and civil society.