Dr. Kontopoulou Konstantina A.
Let’s ask ourselves: Do we know of any high-demand department student or PhD candidate who entered their program as a sole informal caregiver in Greece? Apparently rare, but if yes, did they receive targeted funding, or are equality and public education two myths Greece continues to emphasize for its educational system? Only if we answer these questions with precision can we begin to raise a more profound critique in a system that is not only unavailable in terms of care units for caring for those who experience chronic illnesses or other types of disabilities, but also for their young informal caregivers. This commentary will underscore the value of family resources for admission to highly desired departments of the public university, and it will then demonstrate how it systematically penalizes those whose family circumstances demand ‘extra’ labor, consequently leading to mental and physical frustration: the caregivers. Touching upon the first idea of equality in terms of intake in high-demand departments, it seems that Greece lacks the criteria of its system being characterized as equality-friendly. According to independent data, access to elite departments is significantly correlated with parents’ educational level (Athens Social Atlas, 2026). At the same time, the informal practices of educated parents—like helping their children with studying while being aware of how to select extra tutoring and being able to afford the process—reproduce inequalities and disproportionately benefit students from privileged backgrounds (Giavrimis et al., 2018; Kardasis & Giavrimis, 2025).
This structural inequality generates a systemic legal gap in terms of educational policy as it constitutes an indirect exclusion. Yet, the discriminatory policies of public tertiary education were even more severe in the early 21st century, particularly regarding the right to undergraduate studies, for which student caregivers had succeeded in their admission to the antagonistic public university but in a different city from the city where their family requiring care was. In the context of implementing Law 1966/1991 and the resultant ministerial decisions over more than a decade (roughly 2000–2013), students with disabled family members or family facing serious health problems did not possess a guaranteed right to transfer to the city of their parents, as the law in Greece allowed in various other categories such as large-family status (with more than three children).
Consequently, even serious or terminal conditions, including neoplasmatic or neurodegenerative diseases requiring constant care, were not recognized as factors that should be taken into account for automatic university city transfer during the undergraduate studies of Greek students.
This system resulted in the substantial exclusion of students who, despite the objective need to care for a sick or two sick parents, they were not given the chance to complete their undergraduate studies.
The Greek institutional system remains blind to the specific needs of caregivers. It does not treat, for instance, informal caregiving as a category that should qualify for dedicated scholarships, despite the fact that this category of student-researchers is critically impacted by their responsibilities in terms of mental and physical health as well as financial burden. The most significant effect is related to producing fewer papers during the early years, which leads to “rejection” from job positions and other grants (Bergmans & van der Weijden, 2018). Institutions such as ΕΛΙΔΕΚ or ΙΚΥ continue not to take into account this group of PhD candidates, effectively refusing to fund informal young adult caregivers for PhD research thereby, indirectly excluding their right to academic progress. Therefore, doctorate-level public education turns into an exclusive privilege for those without responsibilities. There are no official criteria for PhD research with criteria of informal caregiving, a fact that leads to a generalized exclusion of this category especially for PhD students who have to simultaneously be informal caregivers, researchers and work multiple jobs, to ensure the capacity of affording a basic survival and the time to study.
Simultaneously, even in the NSRF programs for the acquisition of academic experience (2025-2026), the state remains blind. While a new doctorate holder and caregiver is invited to compete in publications and teaching work with non-caregivers, the invitation does not even recognize care or other social criteria as a criterion for a reduced publication record, even in departments such as psychology or sociology, raising ethical questions. Teaching positions, and therefore the right to continue with an academic career, end up with those who have the ‘privilege of time,’ excluding those who produce unfunded research while at the same time offering a significant amount of labor in a state that lacks welfare policy like Greece. Due to the total absence of state structures for chronic care or palliative support for diseases, informal caregivers are the core of care in a system that not only does not recognize care, but it does not care for informal caregivers who want to move further with academic research. And this bureaucratic trauma is evidently a gap of social policy. Therefore, when observing a (Greek) researcher with an ‘early onset’ of rapid advancement, there should be a delving into the background that permitted the progress and motivated the person. The lack of research in this topic underscores a system that pretends it offers equality in tertiary education, seems to have more gaps than equitable features. In fact, what Greece proudly calls “public tertiary education,” effectively means “education only for some.”
References
Athens Social Atlas. (2026). Unequal access to education. https://www.athenssocialatlas.gr/en/article/unequal-access-to-education/
Bergmans, J., & van der Weijden, I. (2021). PhD candidates as informal caregivers in the Netherlands. In The Future of Doctoral Research (pp. 250-266). Routledge.
Giavrimis, P., Eletherakis, T., & Koustourakis, G. (2018). An approach to shadow education in Greece: Sociological perspectives. Open Journal for Sociological Studies, 2018, 2(2), 71-82
ELSTAT (2025). Income and Living Conditions Survey (SILC): Access to care services and household burden.
Kardasis, I., & Giavrimis, P. (2025). Educational inequalities and entrance to Greek higher education: Views of parents of high school graduates. Education Mind, 4(3), 260–272. https://pedapub.com/editorial/index.php/education-mind/article/view/153
