Women’s Experiences of Managing Work and End-of-Life Care: Challenges, Rewards and Recommendations for Vocational Psychologists

Abstract

End-of-life care is a form of unpaid care work that is primarily the responsibility of women and can affect their career development, employment, finances, and vocational success. This paper provides a review of the literature on the career and economic effects of providing unpaid end-of-life care for women caregivers. Illustrative reflections from women caregivers highlight challenging and positive aspects of providing end-of-life care. Challenges identified by the women caregivers included managing conflicting demands among work, home and caregiving as well as experiencing emotional strain, financial burden and economic instability. In addition, work schedules had to be altered and career trajectories were interrupted. Interestingly, caregivers reported receiving support from their employers and co-workers and few work-related benefits were used. Despite the many challenges in managing work and end-of-life care, many participants felt positively about their ability to provide a caring environment for a loved one at the time of their death. Recommendations for individual, familial, workplace, and societal changes related to unpaid end-of-life care will be provided.

Why Aren’t We There Yet? The Status of Research in Women’s Career Development

“…For our purposes, empirical meant studies with an explicit research design where data were collected and analyzed and results were reported. Although excellent theoretical and critical contributions have been made in response to calls for understanding the experiences of women at work (e.g., Fouad & Santana, 2017; O’Brien et al, 2021), we believed that a review that focused on empirical research would allow us to focus more directly on the methods used to study the area. Case studies that were illustrative of a pre-existing theoretical paradigm rather than investigating a new phenomenon did not meet our criteria for empirical work and were subsequently excluded from the review.…”