Hidden discrimination of informal family carers in employment and work

We will conduct empirical and theoretical research on discrimination against informal family carers in employment and work in Slovenia. We will discuss the relatively new concept of associative discrimination and we will link it to the discrimination due to family care responsibilities to which carers are exposed when looking for a job, at work and when terminating an employment contract. We will review and analyze theoretical and empirical findings on discrimination against informal carers in Europe and elsewhere in the world, with a focus on carers of elderly and dependent family members. We will study the manifestations and reasons or starting points of discrimination against carers. We decided to focus on cares of the elderly following the findings on the complexity and unpredictability of care for people in need of long-term care and given the growing number of employees with care responsibilities to older family members. We place our research in the broader field of informal family care for people with long-term care needs, employment discrimination and reconciliation of paid work and family. These would provide theoretical and conceptual frameworks as well as identify problems, research issues, and make research findings meaningful. Employment discrimination will be treated as inequalities between carers and non-carers. From workers’ perspective, we will explore mechanisms that produce unequal treatment practices in the work environment, ways of discrimination carers experience, perception of discrimination, its causes and starting points, the consequences discrimination leaves on the victims and the confrontation or action against discrimination. The research methodology is based on the integration of quantitative and qualitative methods (Creswell and Plano 2007). Our research plan is a two-phase beginning with the collection and analysis of quantitative data. The first phase is followed by the collection and analysis of qualitative data, the purpose of which is to deepen quantitative findings and connect both qualitative and quantitative findings. We will apply the model of participant selection. A review at the quantitative level is needed in order to support the theoretical sampling of participants for the qualitative part of the research. Our research will emphasize qualitative analysis.