Informal Caregiving at Working Age: Effects of Job Characteristics and Family Configuration

Abstract

This article addresses the relationship between employment and providing informal care for sick, disabled, or elderly people in Great Britain. Hazard rate models for taking up caring and leaving work when caring are estimated using retrospective family, employment, and caring data from the British Family and Working Lives Survey 1994 – 1995 for 9,139 British men and women. Family roles but not employment characteristics were relevant for men and women taking up caring. Being in a lower social class was, however, an important predictor of female carers leaving the labor market. Starting caring and quitting the labor market were not affected by women working part time, nor by most aspects of job flexibility that were considered.