For more than half of informal carers, care comes at the expense of work

“This is in line with the stories I hear from the professional field,” Liesbeth Hoogendijk of the umbrella organization MantelzorgNL tells NH Nieuws. According to the National Informal Care Survey, 58 percent of informal carers sometimes choose care over work, and 85 percent of them did so several times.

“Occasionally taking a day off is certainly very recognizable, and that in itself is not so alarming,” explains Hoogendijk. “What is alarming is that it completely fits in with the trend that caregivers are given many more tasks on their shoulders. Then that pressure can become problematic if you also have to work alongside.”

Prolonged outage

The number of days that the informal carers were unable to work in total due to the demanding care tasks varies enormously, according to the research. Nearly a quarter missed two working days, twenty percent two to four working days and fourteen percent a full working week. Long-term absenteeism also occurred: eighteen percent did not work for several weeks to a month due to informal care, and fifteen percent did not even work for several months.

“We hear on a large scale that the application for domestic help is becoming much more difficult, which means that informal carers also take on those tasks,” Hoogendijk explains. “And often there are also supervision and control tasks on top of that. That sounds small, but in practice it turns out to be a really intensive package.”

Corona as a catalyst

According to Hoogendijk, the pandemic has accelerated the problem of informal care. “We seem happy to have it behind us now, but it has exposed that informal caregivers have to take care of a lot if regular care is lost.”

In addition, staff shortages in care and daytime activities increase the pressure on the shoulders of informal carers. Hoogendijk sees that it is becoming increasingly common that, for example, a daytime activity is planned three times a week, but that this is no longer the case due to problems with personnel. “That’s not an incident, it’s really becoming quite structural now.”

Balance between care and work

41 percent of informal carers in North Holland can partly work from home, making it easier to combine care with work. According to many informal carers, this hybrid working is the solution to the situation that has arisen. As a carer, it is also important to let your employer know about the care responsibilities. “Just the fact that you can share it for a while already helps”, Hoogendijk also knows from research. “It is nice for both parties to be able to think along with the situation.”

Because it is sometimes so difficult to combine care tasks with work, a quarter of informal carers in the Netherlands are considering working less. One-tenth is even considering giving up work altogether. “Often they first try to solve it themselves by taking time off, but later they have to call in sick,” says Hoogendijk.

“If you put it all on the carer’s plate, he is also just a person with work, study and a family. He then has to make a choice. If the informal carer stops working, then another teacher or police officer.”