Female farmers’ burdens from elderly care - A reconstructive analysis in the biographical context

• Applicant: Dr. Christine Niens
• Subject Area: Empirical Social Research
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 468765305

The home care of a family member can cause serious burdens for the caregiver. In agriculture, home care is particularly widespread, whereby the responsibility for care is not always taken over voluntarily, but is also based on legal obligations from the farm succession contract. In practice, the care of the old farmers is then usually taken over by the new female farmer or the wife of the successor to the farm. In the meantime, however, the tasks of women on farms are no longer limited to traditional activities such as caring for the elderly or bringing up children. More and more often they also take over the management of the farm, are employed outside the farm and work on a volunteer basis. Particularly, if the provision of home care is involuntary, this can lead to ongoing role and power conflicts, which put additional burdens on the caring female farmers. The stress situation can also be increased by the lack of retreat possibilities due to the fact that they live on the same farm with the elderly farmers and by the loss of the social environment due to the move to the partner's farm or giving up of an off-farm occupation.Despite the multiple challenges faced by caring female farmers, their life situation has not yet been empirically investigated. This project aims to close this research gap. The purpose of this study is to reconstruct the perception of the care task and the stress situation of caring female farmers against the background of their biographies. The following research questions are relevant:- How do burdens arise as a result of caring for elderly people and how are the burdens dealt with by the female farmers?- Are there certain (power-) constellations and attitudes within the family which contribute to the fact that care is perceived as burdensome or enriching?- How important are the spouses' perspectives and behaviour in the development and dealing of care-related burdens?- How does the need for care influence the distribution of roles and power in the family?To address these research questions, narrative biographical interviews with female farmers providing care will be conducted throughout Germany and evaluated by means of biographical case reconstruction. In addition, the reconstructions of the individual interviews are supplemented in selected cases by the results of interviews with the families and spouses of the female caregivers. In this way, family orientations as well as the perspectives and behaviour of the spouses are also included in the analysis, allowing for a comprehensive reconstruction of the burdens of caring female. The results of the analysis provide the basis for the development of counselling and relief services which help caring female farmers to combine modern lifestyles and agricultural tradition.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants