Career - employee or beneficiary? : implications of careers’ status on public finance : case of the European Union

Purpose: This paper aims to indicate the critical role as an important actor of public policy and the undervalued entity with an essential impact on public finance.

Design/Methodology/Approach: The article employs document analysis, desk research, statistical analysis of the caregiver's households' budgets from a nationwide questionnaire survey in 2015 and 2020.

Findings: The empirical results show that in countries with underdeveloped care infrastructure, the lack of caregivers' input can induce considerable increases in public burdens within the next 50 years. As the group of caregivers is not (economically) homogeneous, public actions should aim to prevent the impact of pandemic risk and provide caregivers with adequate income for the activities performed, treated, or as an employee or as an allowance.

Practical Implications: The ongoing (although very late) process of reforms on long-term care within UE should be more evidence-based to avoid further income stratification between caregivers households and a rapid increase in public finance expenditure.

Originality/value: The article presents the original concept of the classification of caregivers' income, changes taking place over the last five years in the forms of careers' income in the EU, and the selected results of the author's research on the budgets of caregivers' households in Poland in 2015 and 2020.