노인수발 관련 법제도 분석: 가족수발자 지원에 대한 정책적 함의

Radical social and economic changes have affected the context in which families give care to their older relatives. Despite the increased awareness of the limitations of family care and the caring burden and family carers, the policy development for family carers of older people has been delayed. This study examines what assumptions concerning family care are made in social policies and how far those assumptions are in accord with the realities of families giving care to older people. To do so, it analyses the law and system relating to the care of older people, exploring the assumptions and expectations about the nature and availability of family care, and examines the present state and problems of welfare provision for supporting carers, and discusses the gap between the policy assumption and the reality of family care. According to the findings, the social welfare policies for older people still rely on family care based on the traditional value of filial piety, and reflect the assumptions and expectations about the family's(woman's) primary responsibility for the care of older relatives and family members sharing the responsibility for caring and mobilising informal help within kinship networks, and those assumptions differ in some ways from the actual caring experience of families. Finally, this study makes suggestions of the policy development for supporting family carers of older people in Korea.