Houtman, Marijn (2022) Who takes care of the old? A comparative analysis between informal caregiving networks in Spain and the Netherlands. Master thesis, Sociology.
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Abstract
The world will be ageing in the upcoming years. With age comes more disability and dependence on others for older adults and a lot of care falls down to the informal network, like family and friends. This research is about the effect of this informal care network on the life satisfaction of the older adults. A comparison is made between a Mediterranean country and a non-Mediterranean country with differences in family structures and values. The main research questions is: ‘How can we explain the differences in life satisfaction between Spain and the Netherlands and what is the influence of the informal (caregiving) network in both countries?’. As aspects of the informal (caregiving) network, four different things will be examined. These are: satisfaction with the social network, the amount of friends in the network, from whom older people receive care and the frequency of received care. In order to investigate this, the SHARE wave 8 survey is used, completed in 2022. This is a European survey among people aged 50 or over from 28 different European countries. The survey was performed before and during the corona pandemic by in-depth interviews, sampled by stratified sampling. In Spain 2182 interviews were held and in the Netherlands 2067. The data of these interviews are converted into a dataset, which is examined by doing two linear regressions. In this way, four different hypotheses were tested for Spain and the Netherlands. It turns out that satisfaction with the social network leads to more life satisfaction in both Spain and the Netherlands. Satisfaction with the network is bigger in Spain. The amount of friends in the social network in the Netherlands has a positive influence on life satisfaction, whereas for Spain there is no effect found. In the Netherlands, a higher number of friends provide care than in Spain. However, having friends provide for you means a lower life satisfaction in the Netherlands, for Spain there is no influence. Lastly, the frequency of received care is higher in Spain than in the Netherlands. However, again there only is an effect for this in the Netherlands, where more received care means a lower life satisfaction. In general, the informal (caregiving) network in this research is not a good predictor of the differences in life satisfaction between Spain and the Netherlands.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Master) |
|---|---|
| Supervisor name: | Giardini, F. |
| Degree programme: | Sociology |
| Differentiation route: | Social Networks In A Sustainable Society [Master Sociology] |
| Date Deposited: | 16 Jan 2023 15:08 |
| Last Modified: | 16 Jan 2023 15:08 |
| URI: | http://gmwpublic.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/1535 |
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