Austen, Siobhan

This article uses longitudinal data to measure the effects of ill health and informal care roles on the employment chances of mid-life women, and to examine how these effects are mediated by workplace characteristics. We find that women in jobs with lower skills/status encounter the greatest difficulty in finding accommodations for changes in their health and informal care roles. We identify an important role for paid sick leave and holiday leave in boosting employment retention.

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.