Work–Life Balance Measures of Working Carers and Well-Being Satisfaction within Couple Relationships: The Result of an Italian Policy Looking through the Gender Lens

Abstract

Working carers deserve to receive more and more attention from welfare regimes and workplaces. Using the work-family interface approach, we analyzed the effects of the Family Audit workplace measures-an Italian work-life balance policy-on couple well-being. The research was carried out through a Computer-Assisted Web Interviewing survey which was addressed to the employees of the organizations that participated in the policy program in 2015. The results showed that the measures implemented by the companies were able to improve the perception of couple well-being of working carers, but they did not trigger a cultural change that would permit the elimination of differences due to gender in work-family balance. The most effective measures were characterized by high levels of flexibility. These features allow the reduction of the negative effects produced by some socio-biographic variables, some work-related aspects, and aspects related to the Mediterranean welfare regime.2 of 15 to work-care balance is generally not high, and there is a lack of reference to informal carers in many existing policy documents.Women still provide most of the care, whether for their own children, grandchildren or for relatives, friends, and neighbors with a disability or infirmity. When it comes to providing care on a daily basis, twice as many women are involved (Eurofound 2017). Altogether, 12% of people of a working age are involved in the regular care of a disabled or an infirm person. However, the proportion of people providing regular care varies considerably across countries. While this depends on ability to access and afford formal care, it may also be related to the expectations within societies of families to provide care for their own relatives. Finally, the report shows that the intensity of care provision increases with age, with older people spending almost double the number of hours as younger people. However, most carers are also working: 73% of men and 58% of women caring for a disabled person are employed. Being a carer and working at the same time does not automatically mean being at a disadvantage in terms of quality of life. The findings show that the social and economic situation of carers who combine work and care is better than that of non-working carers. The health rates of non-working carers are lower; they find it more difficult to make ends meet, they usually live in lower income households, and they tend to feel somewhat lonely more often and undervalued by others for their efforts (Eurofound 2017).As for Italy, the multi-purpose 2011 ISTAT (Italian National Institute of Statistic) survey indicated at least 15,182,000 people who regularly take care of someone in the family context; this is a good 38% of the population aged between 15-64. Carers are typically (more than 55%) women aged between 45 and 55. Even though some of them are working, 60% of female carers have left their jobs to devote themselves to the full-time care of family members (on average 7 h a day of direct assistance and 11 h of supervision a...