This is evident from a representative Forsa study commissioned by the AOK Scientific Institute (Wido), which is available to the Editorial Network Germany (RND). While respondents in 2019 indicated that they needed 43 hours per week for nursing activities such as nutrition, personal hygiene and medication administration, the time spent now amounted to 49 hours.
The financial burden also increased afterwards, despite the increased payments from nursing care insurance. According to the research, the average personal contribution has increased from just under 200 euros in 2019 to now 290 euros per month.
Many nurses give up their careers
The high time demands have a particular impact on your own professional activity. According to the study, only 46 percent of primary caregivers work full-time. 37 percent have a part-time job and 18 percent have no job at all. More than half of part-time employees indicate that they will be working less because of healthcare. Of those who do not have a job, 28 percent have given up work because of healthcare.
“It is problematic that caring family members are burdened with an average of 49 hours of care work per week at home and that home care apparently leads to almost one in four people downsizing or giving up their job altogether,” says Carola Reimann, CEO of AOK. RND. At the same time, this would cause further problems in healthcare in the future, she warned.
Poverty in old age is a threat
“If caring family members – mainly women – reduce their working hours or stop working altogether, this opens the door to poverty in old age for the next generation of those cared for,” Reimann argued. At the same time, these people were missing from the already tight labor market, including in professional care. “Supply and demand for the compatibility of home care and work must be aligned,” the AOK boss demanded.