‘I just felt as though I had to drop something’: the implications of care for female working elder carers’ working lives

Abstract

This paper explores the challenges that female elder carers in the United Kingdom face in combining paid work with elder care, and the implications of this care for their current and future working lives. In-depth interviews with 11 working women from a large organisation were conducted, and five of the women were re-interviewed after a period of one year to examine any changes in their situation. The interviews revealed the precarious nature of their daily schedules, which required constant effort to maintain, the intrusion of elder care into their working lives, and the impact it had upon their career development and future aspirations. The findings provide insight into the reasons why carers, especially women, are more likely to reduce their working hours, do not take advantage of training opportunities and retire early. The findings are discussed in relation to the expectation of an extended working age and gender equality.

Should I Care or Should I Work? The Impact of Work on Informal Care

“…Adult children who are employed may be less likely to be considered primary caregivers for their older parents than adult children who are not working or who work part‐time, explaining the strong association between work intensity and caring hours outside the household. By contrast, as explained in the section “Theoretical and Empirical Framework,” the decision to provide care for a spouse is likely to fall primarily under the responsibility of the partner, regardless of their work status, due to a stronger normative connotation, as well as the emotional and physical proximity between spouses (Broese van Groenou & De Boer, 2016; Burr & Colley, 2017; Klimaviciute et al., 2017; Van Houtven et al., 2013). This might explain the reduced elasticity of in‐household caregiving to employment decisions.…”

“…This suggests that, while individuals choose the optimal hours of caregiving to equate the marginal utility of caregiving to the marginal utility of working and leisure (Johnson & Sasso, 2000), their marginal utility of caregiving for a few hours is larger than the marginal utility of leisure and work. This might be explained by the moral obligation attached to caring for close kinship, so that failing to fulfil the moral obligation to provide care leads to a significant utility loss (Al‐Janabi et al., 2018; Burr & Colley, 2017).…”

“…Moreover, the observed reduction in caregiving is concentrated among workers in occupations characterised by higher physical or psychosocial demands. This might reflect larger trade‐offs in combining work and caring responsibilities due to demanding jobs being on average less flexible and more taxing on health than less demanding jobs (Belloni et al., 2022; Broese van Groenou & De Boer, 2016; Burr & Colley, 2017).…”

“…Simultaneously, governments raise the statutory pension age (Börsch-Supan, 2014) to increase adult workers' employment rates (OECD, 2017b). Our paper aims to establish how these two policy domains are interdependent by examining how policies that increase the State Pension age (SPA) affect the supply of LTC by older workers (Burr & Colley, 2017). The population affected by increases in the SPA represent a large share of providers of intergenerational care: adults aged 55 to 65 represent about 30 percent of the total caregiving population, 60 percent of whom are women (OECD, 2017a;Rodrigues et al, 2012).…”

Interview with John W. Meyer: If You Study Organizations You Should Not Believe in Them (interviewed by Elena Gudova)

“…На примере Германии было показано, что субъективное ощущение здоровья тесно связано с уровнем возникающего стресса на рабочем месте, который может привести к депрессии ввиду низкой приспособляемости людей старшего возраста к быстро изменяющимся условиям [Siegrist et al 2012;] и, как следствие, станет причиной досрочного прекращения трудовой деятельности. Пол и семейное положение также оказывают влияние на выбор данной стратегии: женщины, которым необходимо заботиться о членах их семей, с большей вероятностью завершат карьеру [Burr, Colley 2019] или выберут частичную занятость, если речь идёт о европейской традиции, а мужчины будут востребованы в воспитании внуков, если речь идёт об азиатской культуре . Опираясь на австралийские данные, можно отметить, что влияние семейного положения на завершение карьеры связывается не только с необходимоcтью ухода, но и с выбором партнёра времени ухода на пенсию .…”