LIFESPAN UNPAID CAREGIVING TRAJECTORIES: DETERMINANTS AND IMPACTS ON CAREGIVERS' HEALTH AND CARE EXPECTATIONS IN LATER LIFE

Unpaid caregiving, the day-to-day support provided to loved ones with health limitations,
is an increasingly defining feature of adult life in the United States. Yet the diverse ways in
which this role unfolds over time and the toll it may take on caregivers’ well-being remain
underexamined. Most research focuses on isolated caregiving episodes, support for a single
recipient, or snapshots of caregiving at specific life stages, obscuring the cumulative, complex,
and at times prolonged nature of these experiences. Anchored in the life course perspective and
drawing on nationally representative data from the Health and Retirement Study and its Life
History Mail Survey supplement, this dissertation traces the arc of caregiving by centering
caregivers as individuals whose own aging and expectations for future support are shaped by
their past care experiences. The first analytic chapter employed person-centered latent class
analysis based on timing, frequency, duration, and overlap of caregiving experiences, uncovering
four distinct caregiving trajectories: Compressed (a single, short-term episode in later life), Early
Enduring (early and prolonged caregiving), Recurrent (multiple sequential spells), and Immersed
Caregivers (early, multiple, sustained, and overlapping care). Gender shaped these patterns, with
women disproportionately represented in the most demanding trajectories. The second analytic
chapter examined later-life health outcomes across these trajectories. Early Enduring and
Immersed caregivers—particularly women—exhibited more chronic conditions than noncaregivers. In contrast, depressive symptoms did not vary across groups. Cognitive outcomes,
however, were more favorable for caregivers. Compressed and Recurrent Caregivers had lower
risks of cognitive impairment than non-caregivers, though this advantage did not extend to those in more burdened groups. The third analytic chapter looked ahead and explored how caregiving
trajectories shaped caregivers’ expectations of receiving care from their own children. Caregivers
were more likely than non-caregivers to anticipate such support, although this association was
driven almost entirely by Recurrent Caregivers. By contrast, those with more extensive histories
were no more likely than non-caregivers to expect family care, suggesting that caregiving can
either reinforce or dampen expectations for reciprocal support depending on the nature of the
experience. Taken together, the findings frame caregiving as a cumulative life course process
with enduring health and intergenerational implications. As caregiving becomes more prevalent
and multifaceted, its consequences carry urgent insights for public health, aging policy, and
sustainability of family-based care.