Employment

Caring for a dependent elderly family member and employment are competing demands for men, and especially women, who work in the United States. Women traditionally function in the caregiving role for parents in need. Yet unlike their mothers before them, modern day women caring for elderly parents have more roles, and thus more role demands upon them. Traditional familial roles as wives, homemakers, and mothers are more often coupled with roles as paid workers and as caregiving daughters to dependent parents.

Caring alters plans to return to work and changes career trajectories for many primary caregivers of children with disabilities, most of whom are mothers. The Juggling Work & Care study was a South Australian cross-sectional mail-out and online survey for carers of children and young adults with developmental disabilities aged 0–25 years, which investigated work participation, work–life balance and psychological well-being.

Diane Seddon and Catherine Robinson describe their study looking at the first-hand experiences of family carers who also have paid employment. 

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.

Reports on what the proposed legislation Carers (Equal Opportunities) Bill, will mean for the provision of services to carers. It aims to provide carers who end their caring role with information on opportunities for education, training and employment.

Issues related to paid work and care are of global importance, reflecting the twin pressures of population ageing and efforts to increase labour market participation. Informal carers of sick, disabled or older people can experience tensions between policies aimed at support for care and support for employment. This article discusses a study of carers’ decision-making around work and care, drawing on evidence from interviews with 80 working-age carers in England.

The National Strategy for Carers has raised the profile of carers needs, but does social services really treat carers as co-workers. The article looks at the impact of other initiatives, such as a Welfare to Work, and the way in which policy and practice may affect attitudes to carers.

Awareness about the role of carers in society and their contribution to the UK economy has been catapulted to the top of the political agenda in recent months following the launch of the first ever Carers' Strategy. Writing at the time of the document's publication, Imelda Redmond looks in more detail at the make up of this six‐million strong group and explains what her organisation is doing to further promote its rights.

Considers how carers of working age incur pension penalties and the ways in which social security legislation has helped or hindered them in acquiring state pensions. Outlines how paid employment and earnings are related to caring responsibilities, discusses the impact of caring on state and private pensions, and considers how pension policy for the future may affect carers.

This article provides information on the movements into and out of paid work by mid-life women. This is a group whose representation in the paid workforce is growing as population ageing proceeds and as educational qualifications expand. It is also a group that will be critical to any labour supply response to the economic challenges posed by population ageing. However, current understandings of the needs and circumstances of mid-life women in paid work are limited.