Caregiving by country

Caregiving by country is the regional variation of caregiving practices as distinguished among countries.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics 2001 paper on the health and well being of Carers, Carers save the Australian Federal Government over $30 billion a year, according to the same statistics there are over 300 000 Young Carers (Carers Australia states that a Young carer is any carer under the age of 25) with 1.5 million potential young carers, where potential is defined as a young person who lives in a household where there is at least one person who requires full-time care (Is disabled etc.). In 2015, carers provided around 1.9 billion hours of unpaid care. According to a new study by the University of Queensland, Australian carers are providing $13.2 billion worth of free mental health support to their friends and family members. This "hidden workforce" is an equivalent of 173,000 full-time mental health support workers.

In Australia they also have The Australian National Young Carers Action Team (ANYCAT) whose goal is to advocate on behalf of young carers (Being young carers themselves) each board member is the sole representative of their state or territory and represent as few as 75 000 Young Carers. In Most states and Territories they have an ANYCAT equivalent team or Board. In Queensland this is called Young Carers Action Board Queensland (YCABQ).

According to the National Bureau of Statistics of China 2011 report regarding China’s total population and structural changes, people belong to the age group of 60 years and above accounted for 184.99 million, which occupied 13.7 percent of the total national population at the end of 2011. The number has risen 0.47 percentage point comparing to the year of 2010. Of these, people age 65 years and above figured up 122.88 million that occupied 9.1 percent of the total and has increased 0.25 percentage points.

As a steadily increasing older population with a growing demand for long-term care, an issue of lacking of elderly care facilities as well as inadequate training for skilled caregivers has generated a social concern pertaining to elder care. According to the official Chinese media Xinhua, professionally qualified caregivers are in great request with approximately 10 million people needed to provide care for the Chinese aging population. However, the report also stated that only 300,000 people currently working as caregivers with less than 1/3 of them are trained properly.

There is no organized caregiver association in China. As a result, family members still construct the major source of caregiving in China especially in rural area where the quality of health services is a problem. A recent study aims to examine the effect of depression on family members of whom sons and daughters-in-law carry out main responsibilities in caring for elderly parents have indicated several findings, including:

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