Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T09:16:02.448Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Effect of caring for an older person on women's lifetime participation in work

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2009

AMANDINE JASMINE MASUY
AMANDINE JASMINE MASUY*
Affiliation:
Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique, Brussels, Unité d'anthropologie et de sociologie, Université Catholique de Louvain, and Centrum voor Sociologisch Onderzoek, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium.
*
Address for correspondence: Amandine Masuy, Unité d'Anthropologie et de Sociologie, Université Catholique de Louvain, Place Montesquieu, 1/1 – 1348, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between informal care and ending paid work for working women of three age groups (up to 30, 31–49 and 50 or more years) in 1995 in Belgium. It explores the effect of being a carer for older adults on the probability of ceasing to work. Most particularly, it focuses on the effect of the care intensity in the different age groups. The analyses use data from the European Community Household Panel (ECHP). A sample of 24,592 working women living in 11 European countries was followed from 1995 to 2001. Multivariate analyses for the entire sample show that the simple fact of caring or not did not influence the probability of ceasing work, but that providing light care had a negative effect, suggesting the presence of a respite effect. As for the effects specific to each age group, caring did not have any effect for women aged 31 to 49 years, but for the other two age groups, women who provided light care were less likely to cease work than those not caring for an older person. In contrast, providing heavy care increased the probability of ceasing work, but only for those aged 50 or more years. The findings suggest that studies of and policies related to informal care and its consequences should give more attention to age group differences.

Keywords

informal carelife stagelifecourse approachlongitudinal analysisfemale employmentEuropean Community Household Panel
Type
Research Article
Information
Ageing & Society , Volume 29 , Issue 5 , July 2009 , pp. 745 - 763
Copyright
Copyright © 2009 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Akaike, H. 1974. A new look at the statistical model identification. IEEE Transactions, Automatic Control, 19, 716–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allison, P. 1999. Logistic Regression Using the SAS System: Theory and Applications. SAS Institute, Cary, North Carolina.Google Scholar
Allison, P. 1995. Survival Analysis Using the SAS System: A Practical Guide. SAS Institute, Cary, North Carolina.Google Scholar
Allison, P. 1991. Event History Analysis: Regression for Longitudinal Event Data. Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences 46, Sage, London.Google Scholar
Barnes, C. and Given, C. 1995. Parent caregivers: a comparison of employed and not employed daughters. Social Work, 40, 3, 375–81.Google Scholar
Beauchemin, C. and Schoumaker, B. 2005. Migration to cities in Burkina Faso: does the level of development in sending areas matter? World Development, 33, 7, 1129–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Becker, G. 1965. A theory of allocation of time. Economic Journal, 75, 299, 493–517.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boaz, R. F. 1996. Full-time employment and informal caregiving in the 1980s. Medical Care, 34, 6, 524–36.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Carmichael, F. and Charles, S. 1998. The labour market costs of community care. Journal of Health Economics, 17, 747–65.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chappell, N. and Blandford, A. 1991. Informal and formal care: exploring the complementarities. Ageing & Society, 11, 3, 299–317.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crespo, L. 2006. Caring for Parents and Employment Status of European Midlife Women. Working Paper 615, Centro de Estudio Monetarios y Financieros, Alicante, Spain. Available online at ftp://ftp.cemfi.es/wp/06/0615.pdf [Accessed 13 November 2007].Google Scholar
Dautzenberg, M., Diederiks, J., Philipsen, H., Stevens, F., Tan, F. and Vernooij-Dassen, M. 2000. The competing demands of paid work and parent care. Research on Aging, 22, 2, 165–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dentinger, E. and Clarkberg, M. 2002. Informal caregiving and retirement timing among men and women: gender and caregiving relationships in late midlife. Journal of Family Issues, 23, 7, 857–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dooghe, G. 1992. Informal caregivers of elderly people: a European review. Ageing & Society, 12, 3, 369–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eurostat 1996. The Household Panel Newsletter. Issue 1, Eurostat, Luxembourg.Google Scholar
Gallo, F., Mastrovita, S. and Siciliani, I. no date. The Nature of Sample Attrition in the ECHP. Italian National Institute of Statistics, Rome. Available online at http://epunet.essex.ac.uk/abstracts/gallo_ab.pdf [Accessed 20 November 2007].Google Scholar
Heckman, J. 1979. Sample selection as a specification error. Econometrica, 45, 1, 153–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heitmueller, A. and Michaud, P. C. 2006. Informal Care and Employment in England: Evidence from the British Household Panel Survey. IZA Discussion Paper 2010, Instituts zur Zukunft der Arbeit, Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit [Institute for the Study of Labour], Bonn, Germany. Available online at ftp://repec.iza.org/RePEc/Discussionpaper/dp2010.pdf [Accessed 11 November 2007].CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henz, U. 2004. The effects of informal care on paid work participation in Great Britain: a lifecourse perspective. Ageing & Society, 24, 6, 851–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jenson, J. and Jacobzone, S. 2000. Care Allowances for the Frail Elderly and their Impact on Women Care Givers. Occasional Paper 41, Labour Market and Social Policy, Canadian Policy Research Networks, Paris, France. Available online at http://www.cprn.com/documents/24968_en.pdf [Accessed 17 May 2007].Google Scholar
Johnson, R. and Lo Sasso, A. 2000. The Trade-Off Between Hours of Paid Employment and Time Assistance to Elderly Parents at Midlife. Working Paper, Urban Institute, Washington DC. Available online at http://www.urban.org/uploadedPDF/elderly_parents.pdf [Accessed 5 May 2007].Google Scholar
Ogg, J. and Renaut, S. 2006. The support of parents in old age by those born during 1945–54: a European perspective. Ageing & Society, 26, 5, 723–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pavalko, E. K. and Artis, J. E. 1997. Women's caregiving and paid work: causal relationships in late midlife. Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences, 52B, 4, S170–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rozario, P., Morrow-Howell, N. and Hinterlong, J. 2004. Role enhancement or role strain: assessing the impact of multiple productive roles on older caregiver well-being. Research on Aging, 26, 4, 413–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sarasa, S. 2005a. Women's Employment and the Adult Caring Burden. DemoSoc Working Paper 20057, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain. Available online at http://sociodemo.upf.edu/papers/DEMOSOC7.pdf [Accessed 11 November 2007].Google Scholar
Sarasa, S. 2005b. How do Midlife Women Manage Adult Care and Labour in Different Welfare Regimes? Paper presented at the ESPAnet Conference 2005, September 22–24, University of Fribourg, Switzerland.Google Scholar
Silverstein, M. and Angelelli, J. 1998. Older parents' expectations of moving closer to their children. Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences, 53B, 3, S153–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Singer, J. and Willett, J. 2003. Applied Longitudinal Data Analysis: Modelling Change and Event Occurrence. Oxford University Press, Oxford.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spiess, K. and Schneider, U. 2003. Interactions between care-giving and paid work hours among European midlife women, 1994 to 1996. Ageing & Society, 23, 1, 41–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stone, R. and Short, P. 1990. The competing demands of employment and informal caregiving to disabled elders. Medical Care, 28, 6, 513–26.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Viitanen, T. 2005. Informal Elderly Care and Women's Labour Force Participation across Europe. ENEPRI Research Report 13, European Network of Economic Policy Research Institution, The Hague, The Netherlands. Available online at http://www.enepri.org/Reviser/enepritarja.pdf [Accessed 17 May 2007].CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wolf, D. A. and Soldo, B. J. 1994. Married women's allocation of time to employment and care of elderly parents. Journal of Human Resources, 29, 4, 1259–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar