Caregiving has taken on more urgency as the nation's population gets older, and the government should build a strong family care system and support policies to reduce the burden to caregivers -- who are mostly female and who sacrifice their personal lives to support their families, social welfare groups and academics said yesterday.
"Women make up a great percentage of family caregivers," said Chen Jin-ling (
At the "Taiwan-Canadian Symposium on Women and Family Care" organized by the association yesterday, women's-rights advocates and academics discussed the family-care policies of both countries, and tried to find ways to support care workers.
Sharing her own experiences, Sheila Neysmith, a professor of social work at the University of Toronto, said a problem with Canadian home-care policy is that it is often isolated from other social policies.
"Education, employment and community activities are organized without regard to the elderly care that many people are responsible for. The assumption that family life and its responsibilities are a private matter is a great obstacle to the development of a home-care system," she said.
According to Statistics Canada's 2002 General Survey on Aging and Social Support, almost 20 percent of Canadians over the age of 45 care for one or more family members over the age of 65, with women making up 54 percent of those caregivers.
Statistics from the American Association of Retired Persons showed that 61 percent of the home caregivers are female.
In Taiwan, more than 80 percent of the elderly receive home care from family members, and 80 percent of caregivers are female.
There are also about 120,000 foreign caregivers in Taiwan sharing the burden of care for the elderly, because the nation has no strong home care system and old-age homes are very expensive, the association said.
While there are several homecare-friendly policies in Canada, including caregiver tax credits, six-week compassionate leave to care seriously for ill family members and respite care as a relief service, Norah Keating, a human ecology professor at the University of Alberta, said that the country still lacks a national home-care system.
"As a result there is substantial disparity across provinces in services offered and payment systems. Many Canadians still run the risk of losing their jobs if they take leave to provide home care," Keating said.
Regarding Taiwan's home-care system, Chen said that a lax social welfare policy means that families have to look after elderly or seriously ill family members without government assistance, and this has led to the need for foreign caregivers and housekeepers.
Instead of treating them as a burden, the government should provide legal protection for both Taiwanese and foreign care workers, disabled and chronically sick people, Chen said.
The group also urged the government to implement a "housework services act" and a "caregiver service law" to give a clear definition of the terms of employment for such jobs.
Daniel Lai, a faculty member of social work at the University of Calgary, suggested that instead of replicating Western policies and programs, Taiwan should develop a care system that fits the socio-cultural realities of the country.
"Western societies consider independence as an ideal state for an older person, whereas Asian countries expect their elders to become dependent as they age. Therefore, cultural sensitivity is considered an essential component of caregiving policies in different countries," Lai said.
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