Eldercare Responsibilities Research Articles

Workers with Family Responsibilities Adopting a Wider Family Outlook

ILO Convention 156, signed by the Australian Government, seeks to enable workers with family responsibilities to work without discrimination. Family responsibilities for care of elders were investigated in a study of 8662 employees from 5 organisations. Between 15 and 33% of employees had elderly parents dependent on them and between 50 and 66% expected eldercare to be a problem for them in the next 15 years. There was little difference in proportions with eldercare responsibilities and those caring for pre‐school aged children. Gender of the employee was not a significant factor in taking leave for eldercare. Policies and practices to deal with eldercare are discussed.

Responsibility for Eldercare: A Concern for Organizations?

This study examined responsibility for eldercare among 1608 employees of a single organization. Only 90 employees (5.6%) indicated such responsibilities. Women and men were equally likely to have eldercare responsibilities. The small percentage of employees having eldercare responsibilities reflected the relatively young age of the sample. While not a large problem for employees at present, as they and their parents age the firm may find increasing future need for policies and programs in this area.

Health conditions and service utilization of adults with elder care responsibilities.

This study examines health conditions and health care services utilization rates of 628 caregivers and 6,599 noncaregivers age 50 or older who were members of Kaiser Foundation Health Plan in Northern California. Controlling for age, gender, and race, caregivers were more likely than noncaregivers to report backaches, insomnia, arthritis, rectal problems, and hearing problems; they were also more likely to report having two or more current health conditions of any kind. However, caregivers and noncaregivers did not differ significantly with regard to the number of outpatient medical visits or with regard to the number of outpatient psychiatry visits.

Caregiving and employment: competing or complementary roles?

This study examines the potential benefits and costs of having both work and elder care responsibilities, based on interviews with 94 employed caregivers. For the majority of the respondents, the negative aspects of combining work and caregiving roles were outweighed by positive aspects, such as a sense of accomplishment, enhanced interpersonal relationships, and opportunities to compensate for limitations experienced in each of the separate roles. Workplace policies and programs considered most helpful by respondents were those which provided options for adapting work routines to complement caregiving responsibilities.

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

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.

To grandmother's house we go? Around the bend on the “mommy track”

This paper focuses on caregiving issues and their salience for women as the primary providers of care to elderly relatives. Assignment to caregiving roles on the basis of gender reflects cultural values and has important social, psychological, and economic implications. Advances in biomedical technology are changing the nature and duration of women's traditional responsibilities for elder care, and present trends suggest that long-term care concerns will continue to gain in prominence as the American population ages. Socialization processes and demographic factors impose greater caregiving burdens on women than on men. A resurgence of interest in family responsibility for elder care, arising out of growing public concern over rapidly rising costs, also affects women disproportionately. The greatest danger is that serial caregiving will compound and reinforce women's current disadvantages in the labor market. Policies that move toward more equitable distribution of caregiving burdens are clearly overdue.

The Prevalence of Elder Care Responsibilities among the Work Force Population

This review synthesizes the findings of 17 independent studies dealing with the prevalence of elder care responsibilities among the work force population. Across-study, summative findings were: (a) approximately one fifth (M = 21.1%) to one quarter (Md = 23.1%) of employees provide care for an elderly dependent; primary study findings varied by a factor of nearly 25, ranging from a high estimate of 46.0% to a low of 1.9%; (b) the average response rate was fairly low (M = 45.0% and Md = 41. 1%), indicating that the studies captured only slightly more than one third, but less than half of all eligible in-sample assignments; (c) the correlation of prevalence and response rates was found to be r = -.69, p < .01; (d) the partial correlation of prevalence with response rate, adjusted for the breadth of the elder care operational definition, remained significant, r = -.50, p < .05; and (e) these two methodological characteristics together accounted for half (R2 = .505) of the variability in reported prevalence, response rate accounting for nearly all (95.4%) of this explained criterion variation. Bias due to nonresponse thus represents a potent threat to the validity of the mean prevalence estimate found in this body of research (21.1%). The implementation of statistical controls for nonresponse and definitional inconsistencies resulted in an estimated prevalence of 7.4% to 11.8%; however, this review outcome is tentative at best and must be tested with future, better controlled primary studies.

Eldercare in the '90s: Employee Responsibility, Employer Challenge

Americans are living longer, but the family members who traditionally care for our elderly—women—now constitute well over half of all new workers. To identify trends in supports offered by employees who are caring for elderly relatives, representatives of 20 employers were interviewed. The interviews revealed that although employers appreciate the burdens of workers with eldercare responsibilities, they have not systematically examined their employees' problems or developed policies to address those needs. Policy implications of these findings are discussed.

The Competing Demands of Employment and Informal Caregiving to Disabled Elders

The competing demands of work and elder care are the subject of this study. The employment decisions of the informal caregivers of a nationally representative sample of disabled elders were examined using a nested multinomial logit model. Findings from the work accommodation model demonstrated that primary caregivers and those caring for elders with greater care needs are more likely to take unpaid leave, reduce work hours, or rearrange their work schedules to assume elder care responsibilities. Being female, white, and in fair-to-poor health also increased the likelihood of work accommodation. The model predicting employment of a caregiver revealed that the prospect of having to accommodate work to the demands of caregiving keeps some people from work entirely. However, not all caregivers would choose to work in the absence of caregiving responsibilities. After controlling for the probability of work accommodation, need for care, and availability of others to care, it is more likely that younger, white and more highly educated caregivers will be employed. The self-selection of working caregivers observed in this study should be considered when forecasting changes in caregiving costs associated with changes in the labor force participation of caregivers as a result of deliberate policies or social and demographic trends.