Working hours

The relationship between working hours and sustainability has attracted research attention since at least the early 2000s, yet the role of care giving in this context is not well understood. Focusing on Australians between 40 and 60 years who have reduced their working hours and income, we explore the relationship between working hours, care giving and consumption. Data from the national census (ABS, 2006, 2011, 2016c) were analysed to contextualise patterns in paid working hours, income and carer roles for men and women aged between 40 and 60 years.

This article concerns new policy challenges relevant to companies in supporting working carers of older people to retain their jobs in Japan. Although long-term leave and flexible working measures have been reformed to address long-term in-home care, the results of new data analysis imply that the effectiveness of support measures differs according to the length of the period of care provided at home.

Employers are increasingly aware of the need for family-friendly policy and practice to be developed in the workplace in order to support those who have caring responsibilities for older adults, as well as, or instead of, children. A number of factors have contributed to this growing awareness, not least demographic changes, which have resulted in the ageing of Britain’s population, with potentially greater numbers of people needing care and support in old age in the future (Bernard and Phillips, 1998; George, 2001). Alongside this, there are fewer younger people in the population.

This paper uses work and caring history information from the British Family and Working Lives Survey (1994/5) to examine the provision of family care and its impact upon the employment and the subsequent state and private pension entitlement among mid-life men and women. Combining paid employment with care-giving was not an option for a significant minority of women with caring responsibilities in mid-life.