Which of Your Kids Will be Your Caregiver?
Daughters Tend to be Senior Caregivers More Than Sons
Perhaps it’s not too surprising, since women are known to be natural caregivers, from nurturing babies, to children, to caring for aging parents, but a new study reinforces the amount of caregiving daughters perform. And it’s worth taking a look at.
The American Sociological Association recently reported at the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association that daughters provide an average of 12.3 hours of elderly parent care per month as compared to sons’ 5.6 hours. “In other words, daughters spend twice as much time, or almost seven more hours each month, providing care to elderly parents than sons,” said study author Angelina Grigoryeva, a doctoral candidate in sociology at Princeton University.
The study also indicates that, in the division of elderly parent care among siblings in mixed-sex sibling groups, gender is the single most important factor in the amount of assistance each sibling provides.
“Sons reduce their relative caregiving efforts when they have a sister, while daughters increase theirs when they have a brother,” Grigoryeva said. “This suggests that sons pass on parent caregiving responsibilities to their sisters.”
Grigoryeva’s paper relies on data from the 2004 wave of the University of Michigan Health and Retirement Study, a longitudinal panel study that surveys a nationally representative sample of more than 26,000 Americans over the age of 50 every two years.
In terms of the implications of her findings, Grigoryeva said the gender inequality in elderly parent care is particularly significant due to the consequences of elder care for caregivers.
“Numerous empirical studies report negative mental and physical health consequences, including a higher mortality rate, for people who provide care for elderly family members,” Grigoryeva said. “In addition, these caregivers often have to balance elder care with employment, potentially resulting in career sacrifices and lower earnings. Providing care for elderly relatives can also impose significant financial burdens on caregivers in the form of direct expenses, as they often pay for goods and services for their care recipients.”
Considering that caregiving for elderly parents is disproportionately the responsibility of daughters, and previous research has shown women suffer from higher negative consequences associated with caregiving than men, the detrimental side-effects of caregiving for elderly parents could have “potentially intensifying effects on a series of gender inequalities pertaining to health and economic well-being,” Grigoryeva said.
About the American Sociological Association
The American Sociological Association (www.asanet.org), founded in 1905, is a non-profit membership association dedicated to serving sociologists in their work, advancing sociology as a science and profession, and promoting the contributions to and use of sociology by society.
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BLOG Date: Thursday, September 4, 2014
Writer: Ryan Allen