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Unpaid care

How does she do it all? Effects of education on reconciliation of employment and informal caregiving among Austrian women

Background: The introduction of reforms to the Austrian pension system in the early 2000s resulted in a significant increase in the employment rate of older working age women. This increase was highly differentiated along education groups, with increases in employment rates concentrated among those with secondary and tertiary education.

Fri, 09/02/2022 - 20:31

Work-family balance in the second half of life: caregivers' decisions regarding retirement and working time reduction in Europe

Objectives: This article investigates how different types of informal caregiving - upward, lateral and downward - impact men's and women's decisions to retire or to reduce their working hours, and how welfare policy characteristics moderate the linkage between informal care provision and employment participation. Methods: The analyses are based on six waves from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE).

Tue, 07/26/2022 - 10:39

Changes in the balance between formal and informal care supply in England between 2001 and 2011: Evidence from census data

Background: Informal care plays a crucial role in the social care system in England and is increasingly recognised as a cornerstone of future sustainability of the long-term care (LTC) system. This paper explores the variation in informal care provision over time, and in particular, whether the considerable reduction in publicly-funded formal LTC after 2008 had an impact on the provision of informal care. Methods: We used small area data from the 2001 and 2011 English censuses to measure the prevalence and intensity (i.e.

Thu, 01/27/2022 - 19:47

How Many Older Informal Caregivers Are There in Europe? Comparison of Estimates of Their Prevalence from Three European Surveys

Informal caregivers are people providing some type of unpaid, ongoing assistance to a person with a chronic illness or disability. Long-term care measures and policies cannot take place without taking into account the quantitatively crucial role played by informal caregivers. We use the European Health Interview Survey (EHIS), the European Quality of Life Survey (EQLS), and the Study on Health and Ageing in Europe (SHARE) to measure the prevalence of informal caregivers in the European population, and analyze associated socio-demographic factors.

Mon, 03/29/2021 - 16:44

Health information management practices in informal caregiving: An artifacts analysis and implications for IT design

Introduction: Unpaid informal caregivers of adult care recipients, including persons with dementia, experience multiple unmet information needs and information management challenges. Objectives: To understand the current personal health information management (PHIM) practices in informal caregiving for adults with and without dementia. Methods: Semi-structured interviews were performed with ten informal caregivers-half of whom were caring for persons with dementia-and four formal caregivers at an adult day service.

Wed, 05/29/2019 - 11:14

Engaging men as fathers and caregivers: an entry point to advancing women's empowerment and rights

Engaging men and boys to do unpaid care work is key to achieving gender justice. This article argues that caregiving programmes with men can be effective and serve as an entry point to engage men as allies for feminist agendas. There is a need to increase the uptake and scale-up of such initiatives, while ensuring quality, local contextualisation and ownership, and full accountability to women and girls.

Thu, 05/23/2019 - 15:41

The young carer penalty: exploring the costs of caregiving among a sample of Canadian youth

This research contributes a first-hand account of the experiences of youth’s substantial unpaid familial caregiving in the context of long-term illness, disability or problems related to alcohol and/or other drugs. A qualitative focus group methodology explored the benefits and challenges of youth’s caregiving via a sample of 15 youth caregivers (or young carers) from both the Greater Toronto area and the Niagara Region of Southern Ontario.

Sat, 05/04/2019 - 12:28

‘Replacement care’ for working carers? a longitudinal study in England, 2013–15

In the context of rising need for long‐term care, reconciling unpaid care and carers’ employment is becoming an important social issue. In England, there is increasing policy emphasis on paid services for the person cared for, sometimes known as ‘replacement care’, to support working carers. Previous research has found an association between ‘replacement care’ and carers’ employment. However, more information is needed on potential causal connections between services and carers’ employment.

Fri, 05/03/2019 - 17:08

The Impact of Informal Caregiving Intensity on Women’s Retirement in the United States

With increasing pressure on retirement-aged individuals to provide informal care while remaining in the work-force, it is important to understand the impact of informal care demands on individuals’ retirement decisions. This paper explores whether different intensities of informal caregiving can lead to retirement for women in the United States. Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Mature Women, we control for time-invariant heterogeneity and for time-varying sources of bias with a two-stage least squares model with fixed effects.

Mon, 03/18/2019 - 15:10

One million and counting: the hidden army of young carers in Canada

The term ‘young carer’ refers to those youth under the age of 25 years who provide substantial unpaid support to a family member due to factors including, but not limited to, familial or parental absence, disability, mental health issue(s) or problems with alcohol and/or other drugs. In the UK, national statistics have been integral to tracking the prevalence of young carers while serving as an important tool towards the development of (and justification for) a national legislative framework supporting these youth.

Thu, 07/20/2017 - 15:11