Most Western societies are confronted with aging societies. Thus, questions about the care of elderly dependents and or the handling with dementia and other age-related illnesses are gaining relevance on the public as well as the political agenda of those countries. As encompassing state structures to provide care for all person concerned are missing, caregiving relatives are an important resource to sustain a necessary supply. To support and disburden them and to strengthen their engagement, many states implemented specific low-threshold offers, counseling possibilities and further programs. However, empirical investigations show that those offers are only partly used by the relatives. A group that only very rarely refers to those offers are relatives with an immigration background. Access barriers seem to be too high. This fact is problematic in two respects: Firstly, the population share of migrants increases in most Western societies making migrant needs more relevant. Secondly, it is assumed that people with an immigration background already suffer from diverse structural disadvantages; challenging and complicated care situations can further aggravate their situations. Thereby, mainly women are concerned.
With our study we aim to find an answer to the following research question: What gender-specific role models do caregiving relatives with an immigration background and their environment have and how do they use state support programs? If you search for a German partner dealing with a comparable research question, we are happy to hearing from you.
As Institute for Health and Generations we are part of the University of Applied Sciences Kempten. It is our aim to combine scientific work with teaching and practical work. We are interested in topics around, elderly care and ageing societies.
