Walsh, Edel

Objectives: This study examines the factors associated with caregiver strain experienced by informal caregivers of older people, using data from Ireland. Methods: The analysis is based on a sample of 1394 informal caregivers obtained from Ireland’s Quarterly National Household Survey (2009). The Caregiver Strain Index is used to measure caregiver strain on a scale from 0 to 13.

Objective: Examining the causal relationship between employment and informal caring to date has been impeded in countries like Ireland where there is a lack of suitable panel data and/or variables for instrument construction. This paper employs propensity score matching to control for non-random selection into treatment and control groups which controls for differences in employment outcomes between carers and non-carers in Ireland using data from Quarterly National Household Survey 2009 Quarter 3.