Abstract
Throughout history, the care for children, elderly and disabled family members in the family structure was traditionally entrusted to women, but with the beginning of the industrial revolution and the progress of urbanization, the need for all able-bodied family members to work arose, which triggered the need for new forms of care. This caused an additional burden on family members (primarily women) because now, in addition to their work, they still had children and elderly family members to care for. In welfare state theories, these situations were attempted to be alleviated by social policies that would provide compensation to caregivers and provide them with formal caregiver status instead of an informal one, recognizing their vital contribution to society.
In Croatia, there was also a need to clarify the status of caregivers, especially prompted by the factors such as the aging population, declining birth rate, and the emigration of a part of the working-age population (caused especially by country’s EU accession in 2013), which created a shortage of educated and qualified personnel to provide adequate care for those in need of it. Despite the import of foreign labour force, the needs have not been met adequately, and the solution here continues to be state intervention by establishing the institute of caregivers and caregiver parents. Additional amendments to the already existing Social Welfare Act have provided the opportunity for family members to provide care almost professionally (under strict and definitive legally prescribed conditions), thus meeting the needs of children with disabilities and elderly people in need of care, while at the same time integrating care providers into the workforce, preventing their inactivity and giving them all the rights and obligations of a worker. This form of “work” has not yet reached its full potential, and this paper will analyse the changes introduced by the new law and how the legal status of caregivers is regulated and whether there are some possibilities of it to change, allowing the caregivers to be considered equal and active participants on the labour market.