Family Caregiver Role and Burden Related to Gender and Family Relationships

Abstract

This study described and contrasted family caregivers and explored the effect of gender and family relationship on the caregiver’s role perception, workload, burden, and family help. Home care agencies and community organizations assisted with the recruitment of 533 multicultural, predominantly Latino caregivers who were interviewed at home. The Caregiver Identity Theory guided the study. Survey instruments were standardized tools or were constructed and pretested for this study. Descriptive statistics and t-test analyses assisted in describing the sample and multivariate analyses were used to contrast the caregiver groups. Findings suggested a gendered approach to self-appraisal and coping. Men in this predominantly Latino and Caribbean sample felt less burden and depression than women who believed caregiving is a female duty. Family nurses should pay attention to the most vulnerable groups: older spouses resistant to using family and community resources and hard-working female adult children, and assess each family situation individually.

Men do care! : A gender-aware and masculinity-informed contribution to caregiving scholarship

“…Most studies within this key idea include both women and men (e.g. Fromme et al 2005;Hash 2006;Bookwala 2009;Sugiura et al 2009;Dunér 2010;Lin et al 2012;Lüdecke et al 2012;Hosseinpoor et al 2013;Friedemann and Buckwalter 2014) but there are some studies that focus only on women (e.g. Mendez-Luck et al 2008, Silverman 2015.…”

“…My reflection is that to make sense of such findings one must not only make analyses connected to gender; in addition, the analyses must be connected to countries' different types of welfare regimes, laws, and obligations to care as well as differences between caregiving partners, adult children or others. Friedemann and Buckwalter's (2014) 57 findings suggest that women (wives) perhaps experience a greater burden because of emotional reactions but also because their income is lower than men's; hence, their economic situation is a cause of stress. These researchers claim that their quantitative study is the first to describe and contrast caregiver, care recipient and family variables in a multicultural sample from the Miami area of south Florida USA.…”

“…The study started from the backdrop that families are increasingly forced into the caregiving role, and from the fact that most research has been done with white samples and therefore much is unknown about the responses of ethnic minority caregivers, which is why they focused on them. By adopting Montgomery and Kosloski's (2013) Caregiver Identity Theory, Friedemann and Buckwalter (2014) aimed to see if the participant's caregiving role agreed with their understanding of themselves as caregivers. The findings suggest that men's caregiving role was more flexible, and they propose that this perhaps reflects that men are more willing to change their situation.…”

“…Even if women seem to experience a high burden, there was another group of male adult children that reported the highest burden. Friedemann and Buckwalter (2014) write that: "These men, many of whom were single, dedicated themselves to the care of their parents" (p. 328). They also found that male adult children received less help.…”

“…They also found that male adult children received less help. When it came to differences according to ethnicity, Friedemann and Buckwalter (2014) conclude that the differences were so small that professionals should; "drop cultural stereotypes and instead explore each family in its own right" (p. 330). However, even if Friedemann and Buckwalter (2014) could not see any differences connected to ethnicity, other analyses of cultural norms could perhaps be useful in analyzing differences between women and men.…”