Keywords: Elder care - informal care - family solidarity - maintenance
Strong family and social relationships are important factors affecting the subjective well-being of recipients of care. This should be taken into account in any approach to reform the policy and legal framework on elder care. Responsibility for elder care in the Flemish and Dutch context is mostly allocated to the state and the market, with the family and social network playing a secondary role in most cases. However, a shifting of this care work towards the family is probable and desirable (at least from the state's perspective) in light of expected demographic trends and of cuts in public expenditure. This has been party achieved in the Netherlands as from 2015.
