IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/geronb/v72y2017i3p522-531..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Work Impact and Emotional Stress Among Informal Caregivers for Older Adults

Author

Listed:
  • Margaret L. Longacre
  • Vivian G. Valdmanis
  • Elizabeth A. Handorf
  • Carolyn Y. Fang

Abstract

Objectives:With the growing aging population and reliance on informal caregivers in the United States, many individuals will take on the role of caregiver as an adult. We examined whether informal caregivers experience work interference or a change in work status (i.e., retiring/quitting) due to caregiving. We also explored whether experiencing work interference or a change in work status was associated with greater emotional stress.Method:This secondary analysis is drawn from the Fifth National Survey of Older Americans Act (OAA) program participants, which included 1,793 family caregivers. The present analysis is on caregivers of working age (18–64 years) providing care to another adult, which included 922 caregivers. Ordinal logit models were used to assess associations between experiencing work interference or a change in work status and emotional stress. Study weights were applied for all analyses.Results:At the time of the survey, more than half (52.9%) of caregivers were employed full- or part-time. Among nonworking caregivers (i.e., not working or retired) at the time of the survey, 39.8% responded that they had quit or retired early due to caregiving demands. Among employed caregivers, 52.4% reported that informal caregiving had interfered with their employment. Importantly, those respondents who reported work interference or a change in work status were more likely to report higher levels of emotional stress associated with caregiving demands.Discussion:These findings suggest the need to further explore work among informal caregivers and associations with emotional stress, as well as consider work-based policy approaches, organizational and/or societal, to support informal caregivers.

Suggested Citation

  • Margaret L. Longacre & Vivian G. Valdmanis & Elizabeth A. Handorf & Carolyn Y. Fang, 2017. "Work Impact and Emotional Stress Among Informal Caregivers for Older Adults," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 72(3), pages 522-531.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:geronb:v:72:y:2017:i:3:p:522-531.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/geronb/gbw027
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Van Houtven, Courtney Harold & Coe, Norma B. & Skira, Meghan M., 2013. "The effect of informal care on work and wages," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 240-252.
    2. Ernest Gonzales & Yeonjung Lee & Celeste Brown, 2017. "Back to Work? Not Everyone. Examining the Longitudinal Relationships Between Informal Caregiving and Paid Work After Formal Retirement," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 72(3), pages 532-539.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Marcin J. Jabłoński & Francisco García-Torres & Paulina Zielińska & Alicja Bułat & Piotr Brandys, 2020. "Emotional Burden and Perceived Social Support in Male Partners of Women with Cancer," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(12), pages 1-13, June.
    2. Echo L. Warner & Andrew R. Wilson & Jessica G. Rainbow & Lee Ellington & Anne C. Kirchhoff, 2021. "Employment of Young Adult Cancer Caregivers, Other Disease Caregivers, and Non-Caregiving Adults," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(14), pages 1-6, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Heger, Dörte & Korfhage, Thorben, 2017. "Does the negative effect of caregiving on work persist over time?," Ruhr Economic Papers 703, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    2. Takashi Oshio & Emiko Usui, 2017. "Informal parental care and female labour supply in Japan," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(9), pages 635-638, May.
    3. Kolodziej, Ingo & Coe, Norma B. & Van Houtven, Courtney Harold, 2023. "Intensive informal care and impairments in work productivity and activity," Ruhr Economic Papers 1010, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    4. Chari, A.V. & Valli, Elsa, 2021. "The effect of subsidized childcare on the supply of informal care: Evidence from public kindergarten provision in the US," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    5. Stampini, Marco & Oliveri, María Laura & Ibarrarán, Pablo & Londoño, Diana & Rhee, Ho June (Sean) & James, Gillinda M., 2020. "Working Less to Take Care of Parents? Labor Market Effects of Family Long-Term Care in Four Latin American Countries," IZA Discussion Papers 13792, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Wen, Jiayi & Huang, Haili, 2024. "Parental health penalty on adult children’s employment: Gender differences and long-term consequences," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    7. Guangbo Ma & Kun Xu, 2022. "Value-Based Health Care: Long-Term Care Insurance for Out-of-Pocket Medical Expenses and Self-Rated Health," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(1), pages 1-20, December.
    8. Ha Trong Nguyen & Luke B. Connelly, 2017. "The Dynamics of Informal Care Provision in an Australian Household Panel Survey: Previous Work Characteristics and Future Care Provision," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 93(302), pages 395-419, September.
    9. Giles, John & Lei, Xiaoyan & Wang, Gewei & Wang, Yafeng & Zhao, Yaohui, 2023. "One country, two systems: evidence on retirement patterns in China," Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, Cambridge University Press, vol. 22(2), pages 188-210, April.
    10. Mommaerts, Corina & Truskinovsky, Yulya, 2020. "The cyclicality of informal care," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    11. Carmichael, Fiona & Ercolani, Marco G., 2016. "Unpaid caregiving and paid work over life-courses: Different pathways, diverging outcomes," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 1-11.
    12. Pestieau, Pierre & Ponthiere, Gregory, 2016. "The public economics of long term care," CEPR Discussion Papers 11365, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    13. Zhu, Chen & Jin, Zhuo & Lee, Chien-Chiang, 2022. "The impact of informal care from children to their elderly parents on self-employment? Evidence from China," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 117(C).
    14. Michio Yuda & Jinkook Lee, 2016. "Effects of Informal Caregivers’ Health on Care Recipients," The Japanese Economic Review, Springer, vol. 67(2), pages 192-210, June.
    15. Joan Costa-Font & Martin Karlsson & Henning Øien, 2015. "Informal Care and the Great Recession," CINCH Working Paper Series 1502, Universitaet Duisburg-Essen, Competent in Competition and Health, revised Feb 2015.
    16. Connor, Jade & Madhavan, Sarina & Mokashi, Mugdha & Amanuel, Hanna & Johnson, Natasha R. & Pace, Lydia E. & Bartz, Deborah, 2020. "Health risks and outcomes that disproportionately affect women during the Covid-19 pandemic: A review," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 266(C).
    17. Finn Kydland & Nicholas Pretnar, 2018. "The Costs and Benefits of Caring: Aggregate Burdens of an Aging Population," 2018 Meeting Papers 271, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    18. Amitabh Chandra & Courtney Coile & Corina Mommaerts, 2023. "What Can Economics Say about Alzheimer's Disease?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 61(2), pages 428-470, June.
    19. Justina Klimaviciute & Pierre Pestieau, 2023. "The economics of long‐term care. An overview," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(4), pages 1192-1213, September.
    20. Yoko Niimi, 2018. "Does providing informal elderly care hasten retirement? Evidence from Japan," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(3), pages 1039-1062, August.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:geronb:v:72:y:2017:i:3:p:522-531.. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/psychsocgerontology .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.