Portuguese 
A woman who cared for her elderly mother-in-law sought recognition of an employment relationship in Labor Court for the time she provided that care, and what undermined her request was not the lack of work, but her admission that nothing would happen if she decided to stop.
The Second Panel of the Regional Labor Court of the 2nd Region, TRT-2, unanimously upheld the ruling that denied the employment relationship. The decision was announced on Wednesday and is recorded in the case 1002049-54.2025.5.02.0320.
According to the ruling, the evidence indicated a clear context of domestic and family collaboration motivated by ties of affection. In other words, the court recognized that care was indeed being provided, and that it was real. What was lacking was an employment relationship in the legal sense.
The Detail That Decided Everything
The central piece of the decision was a statement made by the plaintiff herself. She declared that she would not face any penalty if she stopped providing care. This may seem irrelevant, but in labor law, this is precisely the point that separates an employee from a family member who helps.
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Subordination is one of the four requirements for an employment relationship, along with regularity, remuneration, and personal service. It means that there is someone with the power to give orders, demand compliance, and punish those who do not comply. If a person can stop at will, without any consequences, that power does not exist. And without it, according to the court’s reasoning, there is no employment contract.
The ruling also addressed the money that circulated among family members. According to the decision, financial transfers made by relatives do not turn what is unequivocally familial mutual assistance into salary. In other words, receiving financial help does not automatically convert care into employment.
A Common Discussion That Arises Frequently
This type of action frequently reaches Labor Court, and the pattern tends to repeat. A family member takes on the care of an elderly person, it lasts for years, involves a heavy routine and real sacrifice, and when the situation ends, either through death or changes in arrangement, the question arises about how much that care was worth.
The courts have been deciding on a case-by-case basis, and there is no single answer. There are rulings that recognized a caregiver relationship, even against relatives, when it was proven that there were set hours, orders, demands, and the risk of dismissal. There are others, like this one, where the affectionate nature of the arrangement prevailed.
Thus, what decides the case is not the kinship itself. It is how the relationship was conducted in daily life. Two families may have identical arrangements in appearance yet achieve opposite results in court, depending on who was in charge, how they were demanding, and what would happen if someone was absent.
The Invisible Work that the Law Struggles to Recognize
It’s important to note what is left out of this equation. Caring for an elderly person at home is an exhausting activity that requires constant presence, nighttime attention, and a commitment that consumes a whole life from the caregiver. However, when this care emerges from within the family, it is rarely formalized, therefore it does not generate social security contributions, nor is there any counting of time or protection.
Meanwhile, the person taking on this role often reduces their formal work hours or abandons their job altogether. Thus, the cost of this arrangement is twofold: current income is lost, and future retirement is compromised, all of which goes unrecorded in any statistics.
Brazil currently has over thirty million people aged sixty or older, and projections suggest this demographic will continue to grow in the coming decades. As this demographic shift advances, the number of families that need to manage the care of someone at home also increases, often without the funds to hire professionals or find spots in public services. The informal arrangement, then, is not an exception; it is how most of this care occurs in the country.
The decision of the TRT-2 is technically correct within the framework of labor law. It simply does not address—because it is not its function—the question that lingers about how an aging society will recognize this type of work.
I admit it’s hard to read a decision like this without thinking about how many people are currently in similar situations, without contracts, without days off, and without an end in sight. I’d like to know what you think about family caregiving that lasts for years and has no official recognition.
Should those who care for an elderly relative for years receive some form of formal recognition for their work?
