Care
Care may be defined as the provision of what is necessary for the health, welfare, maintenance and protection of someone or something. It includes early childhood education and care, long-term care of older persons or those with disabilities and healthcare. To understand the implications of care, it is worth distinguishing between care recipients and people with care responsibilities (carers). It is also important to distinguish between care as paid or unpaid work and informal care provided by family and friends. The provision of care services is a key component of social protection, improving quality of life and access to education and employment for EU citizens.
Find the latest content on this topic below.
Paths towards independent living and social inclusion in Europe for people with a disability - Background paper
This background paper looks at the EU policy context regarding deinstitutionalisation for people with long-term care needs, analyses trends and outlines strategies supporting independent living.A decade of low pay: Social services workers still earn around one-fifth less than the average
In the 10 years from 2014 to 2024, the number of social services workers in the EU increased from 8 million to 10 million. They now make up 5% of the total EU workforce. At the same time, the sector is facing labour shortages and continues to be characterised by low pay – around 20% less than the average pay in Member States’ economies as a whole.Investing in our children’s future starts with supporting the workers who care for them
This analysis – which uses data from Eurofound’s 2024 European Working Conditions Survey and EU SILC – examines the gap in early childhood education and care participation and argues that the solution lies in a dedicated and well-supported workforce.Eurofound research focuses on a range of care-related topics. These include working and caring, initiatives to support informal carers involved in paid work as well as those who are not, the increased need for long-term care, early childhood education and care (ECEC), and access to public services.
Improved access to quality and affordable early childhood education and care (ECEC) and elderly care can help to facilitate the European Commission’s goals to increase employment, particularly the participation of women and older workers in the labour market. The European Pillar of Social Rights puts a strong focus on care, firstly regarding the right to equal opportunities and access to the labour market. This focuses on the right of parents and those with caring responsibilities to a better work–life balance, with suitable leave and flexible working arrangements, as well as access to care services. In the area of social protection and inclusion, it highlights the right of children to affordable early childhood education and good-quality care provision. It stresses the right to timely access to affordable and quality healthcare. It also underlines the right of all to affordable long-term and good-quality care services, particularly home-care and community-based services.
The European Child Guarantee, adopted in June 2021, aims to ensure that every child in Europe at risk of poverty or social exclusion has access to the most basic of rights like healthcare and education. The Council Recommendation on high-quality early childhood education and care systems, adopted in May 2019, aims to support Member States in improving access to and quality of their services. Eurofound participates in a thematic Working Group as part of this initiative. Adopted in June 2019, the new Directive on work–life balance for parents and carers, aims to increase women’s participation in the labour market and the take-up of family-related leave and flexible working arrangements.
On 7 September 2022, the European Commission presented a new European Care Strategy as part of its Work Programme 2022 to ensure 'quality, affordable and accessible care services' across the EU.
European Commission: European Pillar of Social Rightsopens in new tab
European Commission: European Child Guaranteeopens in new tab
European Commission: Council Recommendation on high-quality early childhood education and care systemsopens in new tab
Council of the EU: Better work-life balance for parents and carers in the EU: Council adopts new rulesopens in new tab
European Commission: A European Care Strategy for caregivers and care receiversopens in new tab
This is a selection of the most important outputs for this topic.
25 October 2024
Paths towards independent living and social inclusion in Europe
Increasing emphasis on independent living and social inclusion is driving deinstitutionalisation – the shift away from a reliance on residential institutions towards family- and community-based settings for the provision of care and services. The aim is to ensure that people at risk of marginalisation have opportunities to participate fully in society and to exercise their personal rights and freedoms. An institutional culture that gives rise to social isolation and loss of autonomy can be present in any care setting, but it is commonplace in long-stay residential institutions such as children’s homes and nursing homes. Although deinstitutionalisation strategies have been adopted across the EU, shortcomings are apparent. This report presents evidence on changes in the extent of institutional living in the EU over time, as well as information on national deinstitutionalisation strategies and practices. It includes two person-centred case studies that illustrate the benefits of deinstitutionalisation and greater social inclusion and the challenges encountered in efforts towards these goals.
3 June 2024
European Child Guarantee monitor
20 September 2023
Guaranteeing access to services for children in the EU
The European Child Guarantee was established in 2021 to ensure that children in need have access to a set of key services. This policy brief analyses trends and disparities in children’s access to early childhood education and care, education, healthcare, nutrition and housing. This is done using a convergence analysis, which tracks whether Member States are improving in respect of specific performance indicators and whether disparities between them are expanding or narrowing. The analysis, where possible, also looks at the differences between urban and rural areas and between children living in households with different levels of income and risk of social exclusion. The indicators chosen for analysis highlight the links between the Guarantee, the European Semester and the Social Scoreboard.
6 July 2022
Fifth round of the Living, working and COVID-19 e-survey: Living in a new era of uncertainty
The fifth round of Eurofound's e-survey, fielded from 25 March to 2 May 2022, sheds light on the social and economic situation of people across Europe two years after COVID-19 was first detected on the European continent. It also explores the reality of living in a new era of uncertainty caused by the war in Ukraine, inflation, and rising energy prices.
The findings of the e-survey reveal the heavy toll of the pandemic, with respondents reporting lower trust in institutions than at the start of the pandemic, poorer mental well-being, a rise in the level of unmet healthcare needs and an increase in the number of households experiencing energy poverty.
28 January 2022
COVID-19 and older people: Impact on their lives, support and care
This report captures the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the quality of life of older citizens, including the impact on their well-being, finances, employment and social inclusion. It explores the effects on the use of care services and older people’s reliance on other support. The report presents policy measures that have been implemented in EU Member States to support older people along all of the above-mentioned dimensions. These include measures to support independent living and schemes to support the labour market integration of older people or to prevent unemployment, all of which play a role in the quality of life of older citizens.
30 September 2021
COVID-19: A turning point for upward convergence in health and healthcare in the EU?
The impact of COVID-19 has moved public health up the EU social policy agenda. As the EU directs its efforts towards establishing a European Health Union to guard against future health crises, this policy brief examines the extent to which the EU achieved upward convergence in terms of health and healthcare outcomes, as well as health expenditures and delivery, prior to the pandemic. It also examines convergence patterns in infections and deaths from COVID-19 and in the mitigating measures adopted by the EU and national governments.
The findings indicate that, from 2008 to 2019, the health of EU citizens improved overall, and Member States converged in health outcomes, but disparities in government expenditures and delivery of health services continued to widen. Against this background, the COVID-19 pandemic caused further divergence, with death and infection tolls varying greatly across countries. The policy brief stresses that a European Health Union would ideally not only reinforce the crisis preparedness of the EU but also ultimately enable convergence in health and healthcare indicators across its Member States.
28 January 2021
Education, healthcare and housing: How access changed for children and families in 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a dramatic impact on the accessibility of health, education and care services for all Europeans. This is also the case for children, who in several countries have seen their schools closed and replaced with remote learning. They have been affected, too, by the pandemic’s negative impact on their families’ access to healthcare and their mental health. Many families have also experienced rising housing insecurity. The Child Guarantee aims to ensure access to these resources for children in need.
Over 2020, Eurofound gathered wide-ranging data on Europeans’ lives during the pandemic. Based on this data, this policy brief documents changes in the accessibility of education, healthcare and housing in the EU27 between 2018–2019 and the summer of 2020, so that these developments can be taken into account when designing policy responses and mitigating measures.
Researchers at Eurofound provide expert insights and can be contacted for questions or media requests.
Marianna Baggio
Research officerMarianna Baggio is a research officer in the Social Policies unit at Eurofound, working on aspects of the European Quality of Life Survey (EQLS), as well as on the topics of gender pay transparency and informal care. Prior to joining Eurofound, she served as a policy analyst at the Competence Centre for Behavioural Insights of the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre. She has worked as a postdoc at the University Vita-Salute San Raffaele (Milan) and the University of Trento. She also brings extensive experience from a previous role as corporate social responsibility (CSR) officer in South Africa. Marianna holds a PhD in Economics and Management from the University of Trento, specialising in behavioural economics.
Daniel Molinuevo
Senior research managerDaniel Molinuevo is a senior research manager in the Social Policies unit, having joined Eurofound in 2010. His research on health and social care has focused on the quality and accessibility of services, their digital transformation and the working conditions of staff. His work has mainly focused on services for children, both at Eurofound and at UNICEF, where he worked in 2021 supporting the preparation of the European Child Guarantee. He is a member of the Young Ireland Advisory Council and the EU Working Group on early childhood education and care. He was also a member of the EU Working Group that contributed to the review of the European targets for participation in childcare that took place as part of the European Care Strategy. He studied sociology in Salamanca, Spain and at the Humboldt University in Berlin. He has an MA in European Political and Administrative Studies from the College of Europe in Bruges and an MSc in European Social Policy from the London School of Economics, where he also worked as a researcher.
Hans Dubois
Senior research managerHans Dubois is a senior research manager in the Social Policies unit at Eurofound. His research topics include housing, over-indebtedness, healthcare, long-term care, social benefits, retirement, and quality of life in the local area. Prior to joining Eurofound, he was Assistant Professor at Kozminski University (Warsaw). He completed a PhD in Business Administration and Management at Bocconi University (Milan), after working as a research officer at the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies (Madrid).
This section provides access to all content that has been published on the topic.
