FCRP Policy Statement
June-1991-Volume-1- Edition-5
Women, Work, and Caring for the Elderly
A majority (over 75%) of caregivers for the elderly are
women. Many of these women caregivers are daughters or daughters-in-law
who, in addition to caring for parents or elderly relatives,
work outside the home. Research from the Family Care Research
Project in the Michigan State University Colleges of Human
Medicine and Nursing indicate that the multiple demands
of work and caring may lead some women to leave the work
force or to take extended unpaid leaves of absence in order
to care for a family member. Women's work patterns are often
episodic: they leave low-paying jobs, work part-time, combine
their employment with work inside the home, and quit work
in their middle-aged years to care for aging parents. The
overall effect of quitting work has serious present and
future consequences for these women.
Quitting work makes caregiving women economically more
vulnerable, less able to establish a career, and less able
to re-enter the workforce in the future. In addition, episodic
work patterns mean that women are more likely to lose health
insurance and other benefits, social security, and contributions
to pensions, thus reducing the long-term benefits that are
supposed to cover their needs during retirement.
Data supporting these claims came from a sample of 159
caregiving daughters and daughters-in-law. Twenty-five percent
of these women indicated that they had quit work to care
for an elderly family member. When women who quit work to
care for an elderly family member were compared with women
caregivers who remained in the work force, the following
contrasts were found:
Those women who quit work...
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Reported significantly lower incomes;
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Were younger;
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Had fewer family members with whom they
could share the responsibilities of caregiving;
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Rated themselves as less physically healthy;
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Felt their families had abandoned them
as caregivers;
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Scored higher on measures of depression.
These findings support the need for family leave policies
that would allow family members-primarily women-to remain
in the workforce and retain pensions and health and social
security benefits while caring for aging family members.
Such policies should reflect women's contributions to the
long-term care needs of family members. Family home care
allows the family to avoid the high cost of institutional
care for the dependent parent but may lead to poverty in
the caregiver's own aging years. Benefits for home care
of the elderly must be based on needs of caregivers as well
as the patient. Family capacities to provide elderly care
need to be supported by public policy.
This research supported by grant #1 RO1
AG06584, "Caregiver Responses to Managing Elderly Patients
at Home," funded by the National Institute of Aging
and grant #RO1 MH41766, "Impact of Alzheimer's Disease
on Family Caregivers," funded by the National Institute
of Mental Health.
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