Male/Female Differences in the Impact of Caring for Elderly Relatives on Labor Market Attachment and Hours of Work: 1997–2015

Peter M Smith, Caroline Cawley, Allison Williams, Cameron Mustard and Deborah Carr

The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, 2020, vol. 75, issue 3, 694-704

Abstract: ObjectivesUsing representative samples of the Canadian labor market (N = 5,871,850), this study examined male/female differences in the impact of informal care on labor market attachment, and the extent to which differences in labor market participation and employment relationships explained these differences over a 19-year period.MethodsWe examined four outcomes related to labor market impacts associated with caring for elderly relatives: leaving the labor market, working part-time, taking time off work in the previous week, and the amount of time taken off from work. Regression models examined differences between men and women, and the extent to which gendered labor market roles accounted for these differences.ResultsWe observed an increase in all labor market outcomes over the study period. Women were more likely than men to experience each outcome. Adjusting for labor market role variables did not change these estimates appreciably. After adjustment for differences in labor market roles women were 73% more likely to leave the labor market, more than 5 times more likely to work part-time, and twice as likely to take time off in the last week due to informal care. Further, for temporary absences to provide care, women took an average of 160 min more per week than men.DiscussionTaken together, these results suggest an increasing impact of informal care on labor market participation in Canada between 1997 and 2005, and it remains gendered.

Keywords: Caregiving; Employment; Gender; Informal care (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/geronb/gbz026 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:oup:geronb:v:75:y:2020:i:3:p:694-704.

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

The Journals of Gerontology: Series B is currently edited by Psychological Sciences - S. Duke Han, PhD and Social Sciences - Jessica A Kelley, PhD, FGSA

More articles in The Journals of Gerontology: Series B from The Gerontological Society of America Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().