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Caregiving time costs and trade-offs: Gender differences in Sweden, the UK, and Canada

Stanfors, Maria LU ; Jacobs, Josephine LU and Neilson, Jeffrey LU (2019) In SSM - Population Health 9.
Abstract
Population ageing is putting pressure on pension systems and health care services, creating an imperative to extend working lives. At the same time, policy makers throughout Europe and North America emphasize home care. Thus, the number of people combining caregiving responsibilities with paid work is growing. We investigate the conflicts that arise from this by exploring the time costs of unpaid care and how caregiving time is traded off against time in paid work and leisure in three distinct policy contexts. We analyze how these tradeoffs differ for men and women (age 50–74), using time diary data from Sweden, the UK and Canada from 2000 to 2015. Results show that women provide more unpaid care in each country, but the impact of unpaid... (More)
Population ageing is putting pressure on pension systems and health care services, creating an imperative to extend working lives. At the same time, policy makers throughout Europe and North America emphasize home care. Thus, the number of people combining caregiving responsibilities with paid work is growing. We investigate the conflicts that arise from this by exploring the time costs of unpaid care and how caregiving time is traded off against time in paid work and leisure in three distinct policy contexts. We analyze how these tradeoffs differ for men and women (age 50–74), using time diary data from Sweden, the UK and Canada from 2000 to 2015. Results show that women provide more unpaid care in each country, but the impact of unpaid care on labor supply is similar for male and female caregivers. Caregivers in the UK and Canada, particularly those involved in intensive caregiving, reduce paid work in order to provide unpaid care. Caregivers in Sweden do not trade off time in paid work with time in caregiving, but have less leisure time. Our findings support the idea that the more extensive social infrastructure for caring in Sweden may diminish the labor market effects of unpaid care, but highlight that throughout contexts, intensive caregivers make important labor and leisure tradeoffs. Respite care, and financial support policies are important for caregivers who are decreasing labor and leisure time to provide unpaid care. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
; and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
in
SSM - Population Health
volume
9
article number
100501
publisher
Elsevier
external identifiers
  • scopus:85074194501
  • pmid:31720360
ISSN
2352-8273
DOI
10.1016/j.ssmph.2019.100501
project
Longer working lives and informal caregiving: Tradeoffs and economic value
Longer working lives and unpaid caregiving: costs, conflicts and tradeoffs in a comparative perspective
Gästforskarvistelse vid Maryland Population Research Center (MPRC)
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
421054ca-8d53-4694-be49-4e667c584683
date added to LUP
2019-10-24 10:20:34
date last changed
2022-09-01 11:13:04
@article{421054ca-8d53-4694-be49-4e667c584683,
  abstract     = {{Population ageing is putting pressure on pension systems and health care services, creating an imperative to extend working lives. At the same time, policy makers throughout Europe and North America emphasize home care. Thus, the number of people combining caregiving responsibilities with paid work is growing. We investigate the conflicts that arise from this by exploring the time costs of unpaid care and how caregiving time is traded off against time in paid work and leisure in three distinct policy contexts. We analyze how these tradeoffs differ for men and women (age 50–74), using time diary data from Sweden, the UK and Canada from 2000 to 2015. Results show that women provide more unpaid care in each country, but the impact of unpaid care on labor supply is similar for male and female caregivers. Caregivers in the UK and Canada, particularly those involved in intensive caregiving, reduce paid work in order to provide unpaid care. Caregivers in Sweden do not trade off time in paid work with time in caregiving, but have less leisure time. Our findings support the idea that the more extensive social infrastructure for caring in Sweden may diminish the labor market effects of unpaid care, but highlight that throughout contexts, intensive caregivers make important labor and leisure tradeoffs. Respite care, and financial support policies are important for caregivers who are decreasing labor and leisure time to provide unpaid care.}},
  author       = {{Stanfors, Maria and Jacobs, Josephine and Neilson, Jeffrey}},
  issn         = {{2352-8273}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  publisher    = {{Elsevier}},
  series       = {{SSM - Population Health}},
  title        = {{Caregiving time costs and trade-offs: Gender differences in Sweden, the UK, and Canada}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmph.2019.100501}},
  doi          = {{10.1016/j.ssmph.2019.100501}},
  volume       = {{9}},
  year         = {{2019}},
}