How Caregiving for Parents Reduces Women’s Employment: Patterns Across Sociodemographic Groups

This chapter examines the social patterns of elder caregiving among women ages 50 and older in
the United States. We find that women who provide personal care for parents or parents-in-law,
tend to be from more advantaged sociodemographic groups, with larger differences by socioeconomic status than by race and ethnicity. Prior to initiating care, caregivers also have greater labor market attachment than non-caregivers. In contrast, although less likely to provide care,
women from less advantaged groups tend to provide more time-intensive care when they do
provide care, particularly in the extreme upper-end of the distribution of care hours. We find strong
negative associations between caregiving and employment, hours, and earnings, both immediately
and over a longer 10-year period. The relationship between care and work is similar across the
sociodemographic groups that we examine.