Societal Narratives on Caregivers in Asia

Reuben Ng and Nicole Indran
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Reuben Ng: Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, Singapore 119260, Singapore
Nicole Indran: Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, Singapore 119260, Singapore

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 21, 1-15

Abstract: Although there has been an increase in awareness of the struggles experienced by caregivers, discourse on caregiving remains confined mostly to academia, policy circles or the family unit. There have been suggestions that public discourse on informal caregiving dwells overwhelmingly on the outsize toll it takes on the health of caregivers. However, few studies have examined societal narratives on caregivers—a gap our study aims to fill. We leveraged an online media database of 12 billion words collated from over 30 million articles to explore societal narratives on caregivers in six Asian countries. Computational linguistics and statistical analysis were applied to study the content of narratives on caregivers. The prevalence of societal narratives on caregivers was highest in Singapore—five times higher than Sri Lanka, which evidenced the lowest prevalence. Findings reveal that the inadequacies of institutional care as well as the need to train and empower caregivers are pressing issues that need to be prioritized on the policy agenda in Asia. Of broader significance, the diverse capabilities across Asia present opportunities for cross-country learning and capacity-building.

Keywords: caregivers; caregiving; narratives; social gerontology; public policy; text as data; quantitative social science; psychomics; digital humanities; aging policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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