“In Good Times and in Bad, in Sickness and in Health”: A Longitudinal Analysis on Spousal Caregiving and Life Satisfaction

Abstract

Previous research on informal spousal caregiving has documented a reduced life satisfaction among caregivers, but it has rarely considered the dynamics over time, the mechanisms that drive these effects, and different types of transitions out of caregiving. This study aims to fill this gap by focusing on spousal caregivers’ life satisfaction before, during, and after episodes of caregiving. We apply a dynamic perspective which enables further understanding of the adaptation of caregivers to the changed situation over time, distinction of different subdimensions of satisfaction, and consideration of the transition out of caregiving that can be driven by death or recovery of the partner. Using rich panel data of the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (GSOEP), we find that transition into caregiving has a lasting negative impact on the caregivers’ life satisfaction. This decline in satisfaction seems to be mainly driven by negative impacts of caregiving on leisure time. For transitioning out of caregiving, the results depend upon the reasons for ending this task. While we find no changes in caregivers’ life or domain satisfaction after recovery of the care recipient, our results show that transitions out of caregiving caused by the death of the dependent partner go along with increases in well-being after a first negative shock.