Caring within the Family: Reconciling Work and Family Life

Abstract

The trade-off between time dedicated to family and time dedicated to work has generated an extensive literature, particularly with respect to women in general and, specifically, as regards mothers. To coincide with 2014 being the twentieth anniversary of the international year of the family, we began to work in the edition of a special issue on caring within the family, with special reference to the family–work conflict. Thus, we extend here the literature on this topic with new and recent international evidence on different approaches and results, with the final aim being to provide policy recommendations in order to reduce socio-economic inequality among households. We included issues dealing with the work–family conflict that caregivers, in comparison with non-caregivers, may themselves experience as a result of their care responsibilities, with how conflicts between work and family shape the marital satisfaction of working men and women, with how the male breadwinner/ female homemaker model is perceived cross-culturally by immigrant couples, and with the maternal gatekeeping of dual-earner mothers with pre-school-age children. We also included issues on the time allocation of selfemployed men and women, relative to paid employees and, particularly, on the key resources that rural, low-income mothers working non-standard hours require to meet their work–family demands. Other special aspects of caring within the family are the levels of parental involvement in the contexts of education and public health insurance. The family–work conflict emerges in a variety of circumstances, depending on whether family members are, primarily, altruistic or selfish. Becker (1981), and Becker and Barro (1988) established that altruism motivates the donor’s concern for the well-being of the recipient, with no expectation of compensation. The alternative approach, the exchange or self-interest motivation, developed by Cox (1987), Cox and Rank (1992) and Cigno (1993), is based on the fact that individuals obtain utility from transfers to children because they expect to receive some form of compensation in the future. The number of working individuals with informal care responsibilities has risen in the developed countries in recent decades. However, there is little research that has used representative survey data to investigate the work–family conflict that caregivers, relative to non-caregivers, may themselves experience as a result of their care responsibilities. The characterization of this topic is particularly interesting, given that the former are burdened with an additional set of demands that stretch their already-scarce time and energy. Paul Glavin and Amanda Peters examined the social distribution and mental health of those who provide unpaid health-related care to a family member or relative, with a particular focus on gender differences. The authors developed multivariate analyses, using data on Canadian workers, to extend prior research that has documented differences in the duties and experiences of men and women caregivers. They first revealed that, while caregiving is a fairly common activity among those in the labor force, this is especially the case among women. Second, the authors suggested that caregivers are fulfilling care responsibilities in addition to their existing paid work