Gender and relationship differences in caregiving patterns and consequences among employed caregivers

Abstract

Gender and relationship differences in caregiving (i.e., for a spouse, parent, parent-in-law, other relative, or friend) are investigated among a sample of employed caregivers (N = 2,174). No gender differences were found in the provision of 7 of 13 caregiving tasks, but women devoted more time and were more likely to be primary caregivers. After controlling for other key variables, relationship added modestly to the ability to predict all five measures of caregiving consequences, and gender further added nominally to the ability to predict three of the measures. The findings lend support to the gender-role socialization hypothesis (Miller and Cafasso, 1992) and suggest the targeting of services to caregivers of spouses and parents, especially female caregivers.