OPINION – Full-time family carers should be recognised as workers
In Italy, those who care for a family member with a disability living with them 24 hours a day are neither recognised nor supported. They find themselves alone, poor (having given up work to provide care) and at risk of depression. The law in Italy has been awaited for 30 years and has been under discussion in parliament for 15 years.
Together with the family carer community in Italy, we launched a petition dedicated to those who find themselves in the situation of caring for a dependent family member without sufficient financial means to live, who cannot hold down a paid job because of their caregiving responsibilities, and who receive no support from services (which do not exist and are not organised).
Those who live in this situation are destined to suffer psychological and physical exhaustion and have a life expectancy that is 17 years lower than average. Obtaining recognition as a worker would provide relief, first and foremost because family carers would finally be independent and have the basic guarantees that are the rights of every human being, namely the money to support themselves, receive treatment if they fall ill, rest and then retire. Currently, 24-hour family carers are in a constant state of anxiety and at risk of burnout. They have no one to replace them, they do not take care of themselves or do so inadequately, and they have to manage on very little money, often just the monthly allowance of the person they are caring for. Finally, family carers are subject to the terrible phenomenon of murder-suicide, which in Italy is trivially dismissed as a “desperate act”.
It is very difficult to explain to politicians the serious situation in which family carers find themselves and to demand that they be recognised as the workers they actually are: despite 19 bills pending in the Italian Chamber of Deputies and the Senate and a dedicated commission (the XII in the Chamber of Deputies) that began its work in the autumn of 2022, there is still no single text.
Furthermore, this government has excluded the very few representative associations of family carers from working on the law, admitting instead associations of domestic workers and carers or associations for rare diseases that have nothing to do with the real target group of the law.
This is why we have launched a campaign Caregiverfamiliariuniti.org with family carer and disability organisations from across Italy, in order to give a voice to those who really take care of their loved ones who are not self-sufficient, free of charge and without state support, in order to obtain the recognition they deserve and finally dignity.
________________
About the author: Alessandra Corradi is an Italian activist, mother, and founder of the association Genitori Tosti In Tutti I Posti, dedicated to the rights of people with disabilities and their families — in particular family carers.
**DISCLAIMER: All opinions in this article reflect the views of the author, not of COFACE Families Europe**
