Challenges of becoming in need of care and promises of agencies for live-in care in Germany

By, Prof. Dr. Kerstin WÜSTNER

Abstract

There are different models of care for elderly people in Germany. Policy strategies provide support, but this is weak for some models, such as live-in care. The latter is an option to stay at home with the help of live-in care. There is no public support for this model, so individuals have to organise it themselves or refer to offers from live-in care agencies that provide carers. Their promises can contribute to the social representation of this model of care. This, in turn, can generate expectations of live-in care. This paper aims to analyse which promises might contribute to the social representation of live-in care and what it might mean for clients to share them. For this purpose, text messages on the websites of 50 agencies are analysed. Agencies empathetically describe the challenges of becoming a care recipient and present live-in care as the best solution. The analysis reveals recurring narratives relating to arrangements, carers and agencies that stabilise different social representations.
Keywords: Care in Germany, live-in care, narratives, social representations

https://doi.org/10.58944/brui6174