Assessing Employees' Emerging Elder Care Needs and Reactions to Dependent Care Benefits

Abstract

This article explores employees' emerging elder care needs and their reactions to two currently adopted dependent care benefits, a dependent care spending account and the leave of absence program. Survey data was collected from employees in several public service organizations (a utility, a branch of the American Red Cross, and a not for profit hospital). Experiencing problems with elder care arrangements was related to having negative attitudes regarding managing work and elder care responsibilities and increased likelihood of missing work. Exploratory analysis revealed that demographic variables such as gender, household employment configuration, adult living arrangements, and form of adult dependent care used were related to variation in the extent that employees experienced elder care problems, and their elder care related attitudes and absenteeism. While the group of employees who presently need assistance is small, about one third of total respondents (35%) indicated that they expect to have elder dependents in the future. Employees' evaluation of existing dependent care benefits, a flexible spending account and an unpaid leave of absence program showed that while these programs were perceived to be somewhat effective, users felt that improvements in their communication and implementation were needed. Employees who were managers or male were significantly more likely to hold more positive attitudes regarding the effectiveness of the leave of absence program than those who were nonmanagers or female. Nonmanagers tended to use the dependent care account to a significantly lower degree than managers. A rank ordering of present and potential employee benefits revealed sick care as the top preference for employer assistance.