The experience of family caregivers and migrant paid caregivers relief of burden: A contrasted qualitative analysis

Older people are increasingly being cared for in the community across Europe. Dependent care in Spain largely remains a private issue involving family carers and migrant women from developing countries. Qualitative research on respite care has contributed to our understanding of respite as a subjective experience. Nonetheless, how care-givers relieve the burden of care is still not fully understood. Migrant caregivers are present in family life but their need for rest remains unseen. The aim of the study presented in this paper was to contrast family care-givers and migrant caregivers’ strategies for relief from their caring role. Care-givers rest by thinking, doing and being but in a different manner from that of care-giving, that is: when they are a different person. To leave the life of care-giving is the general strategy that family care-givers use to rest from their care-giving selves while turning to one’s own world describes the way migrant care-givers seek to relieve the burden of care. The comparative analysis shows that both strategies have in common the necessity to disconnect from the care-giving identity and that both migrant and family care-givers employ strategies that are false exits to a care-giving identity : they apparently relieve the burden of care. Respite goes beyond places, times and activities; as family care itself, it requires identity.