WELLCARE – Caring Over the Lifecycle: the Roles of Families and Welfare States Today and Into the Future

Economic development in parallel to demographic changes over the past decades have altered family structures and the way care is given and received along the lifecycle. This long-running trend has been recently affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, especially the tragic rates of mortality in too many institutional care settings for the elderly, and the widespread closures of schools. These dramatic changes make more evident how the market economy relies on non-market economic activities to provide welfare in general and care to dependent children and elders. At the same time, it has highlighted just how much the informal care economy relates to inequality in general and exposes the gender gap.