Aging & Social Change: Tenth Interdisciplinary Conference

Abstract

In Flanders (Belgium) the public health and care policies are increasingly focused on aging in place. The local community and the neighborhood are expected to fulfill an important role in care provision, which is reflected in the new residential care decree (2020). However, not much is known about the influence of the neighborhood on aging in place in Flanders, nor the social networks within them. In the academic debate it is often stressed that the neighborhood has lost importance in our daily lives. However, the COVID-19 crisis may have changed that. Belgium was characterized by a stringent lockdown, wherein not only non-essential stores were closed, but also contacts between generations were restricted or classified as non-essential. Daily life was therefore largely confined to the local neighborhood. An interesting question is if that also resulted in more support from the neighborhood when it comes to informal care provision and social support? To get more insight in this, 10 (but ongoing) semi-structured telephone interviews with informal caregivers were conducted to talk about caregiving in the context of the lockdown and the role of the neighborhood. The results indicate that habitual informal family caregivers took on the extra care needs during the lockdown themselves and that there was in general little to no (additional) appeal on the neighborhood. Additional interviews with neighborhood platforms are being carried out to get more insight in support towards people without family networks, who probably appealed more to the neighborhood.