Caregiving Connections: Exploring Relationships between Caretakers
Caregiving can be distributed among multiple family members and friends, although there is not much information regarding the number of caregivers who play a secondary role, the types of help they provide, how much time they spend providing help and whether the relationships between primary and secondary caregivers are supportive or conflicting. In this caregiving essay will be an attempt to reveal this topic.
Some researchers identify two groups of carers: primary caregivers (family members who have primary responsibility for providing care and who spend most of their time providing care) and secondary caregivers (people who provide additional help to the care recipient). Spouses/partners and daughters are more likely to be primary caregivers and men and non-relatives are more likely to provide a secondary caregiving support. Primary caregivers usually provide much more time of care than secondary caregivers. They also make the majority of decisions regarding care provision to the care recipient.
According to professor Richard Schulz, same-generation caregivers (usually a spouse or a partner) have different physical and cognitive capabilities and commitment to caregiving than next-generation caregivers (usually children). He explains that “because same-generation caregivers are older than next-generation caregivers, they are at a higher risk of age-related physical and cognitive declines including chronic illness and some level of disability”. Same-generation caregivers are also more likely to feel that they have no choise and are obliged to care for their spouses. A study found that 60 percent of spouse caregivers reported having no choice in taking on the caregiving role while 51 percent of adult children reported having no choice.
Australia’s great diversity means that families bring their own histories and traditions to caregiving. In many cultures, there are expectations that adult children will look after their parents when they are frail and need support, for examples, Eastern European cultures where daughters or daughters-in-law are expected to become the primary caregivers for ageing parents. Residential care facilities are not very common there.
In summary, there is no one type of family that provide care because family caregiving related factors can vary immensely. There are many different relationships caregivers have with their care recipients (spouse, children, other relatives), living arrangements (living with or separately from the care recipient), types of caregivers (primary caregiver or someone who provides secondary and additional support), the physical and mental conditions of the care recipients (dementia, frailty, disability). One thing that is common to family carers is that they, through choice or obligation, feel the need to help and support their loved ones and improve their quality of life.
