Neoliberalization of Familialism by Default: The Case of Local Organization of Elder Care in Poland

This chapter examines diverse local care loops within one country, as it explains how the local context affects the implementation of elder care policies from the perspective of two Polish towns. Poland has a family-by-default care regime, based on informal and unpaid family carer, with modest availability of public in-home and institutional care. In recent years, care provisions have seen cuts in spending, marketization, and precarization of care work under neoliberalism. As Poland has never seen a large-scale de-familialization of care for the older adults, the current situation is best described as the neoliberalization of the family-by-default model. We present empirical cases of care arrangements from our ethnography of elder care in two Polish middle-sized towns. This comparative study explains how the local care loops can successfully mobilize local actors, under favourable conditions.However, because of central cuts, financial burdens for local public care institutions and for families grew, and, as these actors resist the caring obligations, it contributes to creation of care loopholes that leave the low- or no-income people without care. These care loopholes may be filled in by the third sector ‘hybrid’ organizations that encompass the social integration efforts and care provision rather than focusing on one function.