Family care during the first COVID-19 lockdown in Germany: longitudinal evidence on consequences for the well-being of caregivers

Katja Möhring (), Sabine Zinn () and Ulrike Ehrlich ()
Additional contact information
Katja Möhring: University of Bamberg
Sabine Zinn: German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin)
Ulrike Ehrlich: German Centre of Gerontology (DZA)

European Journal of Ageing, 2023, vol. 20, issue 1, No 15, 11 pages

Abstract: Abstract We examine changes in the well-being of family caregivers during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany, using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) and the SOEP-CoV study. The COVID-19 pandemic posed an extraordinary challenge for family caregivers, as care recipients are a high-risk group requiring special protection, and professional care services were severely cut back. The specific situation of the COVID-19 pandemic allows us to re-examine the caregiver stress process model. Using first difference regression models, we analyse changes in general life satisfaction and depressive symptoms (PHQ-4 score) among family caregivers between 2019 and spring 2020, differentiating by care intensity and duration of the care episode. Caregivers show similar changes in well-being as non-caregivers: a simultaneous increase in depressive symptoms and life satisfaction between 2019 and 2020. However, our results reveal heterogeneity within the group of family caregivers as we find differences according to caregiving dynamics and intensity. Among the group of continuing caregivers, high-intensity caregivers experience a larger increase in life satisfaction, and low-intensity caregivers a smaller increase in life satisfaction, compared to non-caregivers. Our results therefore provide some support for the role enhancement hypothesis for continuing caregivers with high time commitment.

Keywords: Corona pandemic; Depression; First difference regression; Informal care; Life satisfaction; SOEP-CoV (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10433-023-00761-2 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:eujoag:v:20:y:2023:i:1:d:10.1007_s10433-023-00761-2

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.springer ... iences/journal/10433

DOI: 10.1007/s10433-023-00761-2

Access Statistics for this article

European Journal of Ageing is currently edited by Marja Aartsen, Susanne Iwarsson and Prof. Dr. Matthias Kliegel

More articles in European Journal of Ageing from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().