Couldn’t Care Less? Understanding and Reducing the Hiring Penalty of Care-Related Career Breaks

Liam D'hert (), Morien El Haj () and Stijn Baert ()
Additional contact information
Liam D'hert: Ghent University
Morien El Haj: Ghent University
Stijn Baert: Ghent University

No 18292, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Surging demands for the care of dependent relatives increasingly pull workers out of paid employment. However, upon returning to the labour market, former caregivers often face hiring discrimination. Still, it remains unclear which caregiving engagements trigger this care penalty, what mechanisms sustain it, and how it can be countered. Conducting a factorial survey experiment with professional recruiters, this study compares hiring evaluations across multiple care- and non-care-related career breaks and identifies the mechanisms that anchor them. The findings show that the scarring effects of care-related breaks are less pronounced than those of long-term unemployment spells, but still substantial. Perceptions of skill loss, reduced commitment, and limited future availability fuel the care penalty. These negative perceptions are most evident following childcare-related breaks. Nonetheless, recruiters prove responsive to targeted counter-stereotypical cues: signalling flexibility or adaptability increases caregivers’ hireability, but not for the long-term unemployed.

Keywords: career break; caregiving; care penalty; unemployment; inactivity; hiring; experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 E24 J22 J64 J71 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp18292.pdf (application/pdf)

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:iza:izadps:dp18292

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().