Caregiving in Transition in Southern Europe: neither Complete Altruists nor Free-Riders.

The paper is a product of the SOCCARE project, a comparative research financed in EU Framework Program 5 and based on in-depth interviews conducted in five European countries in four types of families under stress: a package was dedicated to families with elderly dependants and an heavy care burden. The paper investigates by the methodology of case-matching the conditions of sandwich generation caregivers which is under transformation in Southern European countries due to a changing equilibrium among generations and to a stretching of life course phases. The result seems to be a new type of vulnerable family with a very heavy double front of care