New EU Anti-Poverty Strategy: informal carers must be protected from poverty
Eurocarers welcomes the new package of initiatives launched by the European Commission the week of 4 May to help end poverty in the EU and strengthen the rights of persons with disabilities. At a time of growing social and economic pressure, maintaining ambition for social progress and sustaining the momentum of the European Pillar of Social Rights is more important than ever.
We strongly support a comprehensive approach to tackling poverty, built on access to employment, quality services, and adequate income support, with particular focus on the housing crisis, child poverty, and the rights of persons with disabilities.
In Europe, that act of love — that essential act of providing informal care — is increasingly becoming a fast track to poverty. Informal carers provide most long-term care across Europe, and they are overwhelmingly women. Too often, caring responsibilities force women to reduce working hours or leave employment altogether, limiting career progression, reducing income, and weakening future pension entitlements. Combined with the direct costs of caregiving, this creates a gendered pathway to poverty and social exclusion that often extends into old age. Our society and welfare state models are essentially asking informal carers to pay a “care tax” with their own financial security.
It is thus encouraging to see recognition of the heightened poverty risks faced by informal carers, through a clear gender perspective and attention to the gender pension and care gaps. Informal carers are concerned by every policy area covered in this package. Progress on work-care-life balance measures must continue so that carers can enter into, remain in, and/or return to employment after their caring duties. Carers should benefit from affordable, accessible, and high-quality long-term care and support services. They should also receive adequate financial support, recognising the value of caregiving but also ensuring that they are not financially disadvantaged for providing care. This is particularly crucial in maintaining the dignity and motivation of carers.
We also note with great satisfaction that the proposal for a Council Recommendation on fighting housing exclusion aims to also address inadequate housing, including the lack of access to long-term care and the lack of housing adaptations in response to special needs, and looks forward to achieving greater integration of housing and care policies alongside the Care Deal.
At the same time, while we strongly support efforts to strengthen the European Child Guarantee, we regret the absence of explicit recognition of young carers. This is a missed opportunity to address the persistent lack of identification and tailored support for young carers across Member States, despite growing evidence and recent policy developments at EU level recognising the importance of this.
We urge Member States and all relevant stakeholders to contribute to the anti-poverty strategy within their respective competences. Concrete measures to tackle carers’ poverty must be developed in dialogue with informal carers, aligned with the Care Deal, and backed by robust investment at EU, national, and local levels. Eurocarers stands ready to contribute its expertise and knowledge to help design effective, inclusive, and sustainable solutions.
