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Elder Care
Middle-Aged Women Likely to Quit Jobs for Caregiving
With workforce aging and becoming more female it challenges business
April 24, 2006 - Middle-aged women who become
caregivers for ill or disabled family member are more likely to leave
their jobs altogether than reduce their hours, according to a new
Indiana University study. The study also found that unpaid family leave
proved most useful in helping caregivers keep their jobs.
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The study, by sociologists Eliza Pavalko and
Kathryn Henderson, sought to determine whether working midlife women
were more likely to leave the labor force once they began care work --
answer: they were -- and whether workplace policies made any difference.
While access to family-friendly benefits such as
flexible hours and paid vacation and sick days helped middle-aged women
in general remain employed, only unpaid leave made a significant
difference for caregivers.
None of the benefits, Pavalko notes, eased the
psychological distress endured by the caregivers.
"Prior studies have consistently found that
caregivers have higher levels of psychological distress," Pavalko said,
"but workplace policies do not appear to help reduce that stress."
Pavalko and Henderson's research, which was funded
by the National Institute on Aging, appears this week in the May issue
of the journal Research on Aging. The article is titled "Combining Care
Work and Paid Work: Do Workplace Policies Make a Difference?" and is
available online (click).
These findings come in the face of two trends, a
workforce that is both increasingly female and aging, meaning that more
and more working men and women will encounter the challenges of caring
for parents and other loved ones.
During the six-year study period, 13 percent of the
employed women surveyed provided substantial levels of care for ill or
disabled family members at least once. Caregivers who leave the
workforce not only experience the immediate loss of their income and
other employment benefits but face the prospect of reduced Social
Security benefits later in life.
"Despite growing attention to family-friendly
policies in the workplace, we know surprisingly little about whether
they help families manage the burden of care work," Pavalko said.
"Employers may be particularly interested to find that the relatively
inexpensive benefit of unpaid family leave is so effective for reducing
employee turnover."
The study drew from the responses of 2,021 women
involved in the 1995 to 2001 waves of the National Longitudinal Survey
of Young Women. Here are additional findings:
● A woman's likelihood to remain in the workforce
once caregiving begins is reduced by 50 percent.
● Of the sample, 71 percent reported access to unpaid family leave, 79
percent reported access to health insurance, almost 75 percent reported
having six days or more of paid vacation or sick leave, and 37 percent
reported access to flexible hours.
● Employees who had access to flexible hours were 50 percent more
likely to remain employed regardless of whether or not they were
caregiving.
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