Managers, Consumers, Visitors: Roles of Caring Relatives in Emerging Home-based Eldercare in the Czech Republic

Each culture has a deeply rooted understanding of what constitutes the ideal foreldercare organization. This article investigates the role of family members in the delegation and provision of eldercare by private for-profit agencies in the Czech Republic. In this post-socialist country with a high level of intergenerational solidarity, a new market for eldercare has emerged in recent decades. We are interested in how the dominance of the family in eldercare provision is inscribed in the functioning of forprofit agencies and their caring practices. We examine how the role of family members whose elderly relatives receive paid care provided by private for-profit agencies is conceptualized by those who sell the care services, those who provide these services, and the care recipients themselves. We draw upon interviews conducted with the owners of private agencies, ethnographic observations, and informal interviews with paid care workers.Each culture has a deeply rooted understanding of what constitutes the ideal for eldercare organization. This article investigates the role of family members in the delegation and provision of eldercare by private for-profit agencies in the Czech Republic. In this post-socialist country with a high level of intergenerational solidarity, a new market for eldercare has emerged in recent decades. We are interested in how the dominance of the family in eldercare provision is inscribed in the functioning of forprofit agencies and their caring practices. We examine how the role of family members whose elderly relatives receive paid care provided by private for-profit agencies is conceptualized by those who sell the care services, those who provide these services, and the care recipients themselves. We draw upon interviews conducted with the owners of private agencies, ethnographic observations, and informal interviews with paid care workers