Women caring for elderly family members: shaping non-traditional work and family initiatives

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. Maintaining today's families via the kin-keeping role may be increasingly difficult for the employed elder caregiver, typically a female in her mid-40s to late 50s. The burdens employed caregivers experience have effects in the workplace, for example, attendance problems and poor job performance. Yet, the research in this area is relatively sparse, especially in data on the effect of family status on numerous measures of productivity and employee performance. How research can deliver assistance in programming and policy development of eldercare benefits in the workplace by demonstrating which categories of employees (i.e., by gender, age, race, ethnicity, occupational status, and earnings) are most affected by elder caregiving and in what ways is presented. Family and work initiatives to help maintain this balance between family and job responsibilities are discussed and recommended.