Unpaid Care to Older Persons and Tradeoffs in Time Use: The Experience of Working-Age Women and Men in the US

Abstract

The need to better understand the nature of work related to unpaid caregiving to older persons and its effect on the caregivers has become a pressing issue given the worldwide trend toward population aging. This study focuses on those who frequently provide this type of unpaid care in the US. Using pooled 2011–19 American Time Use Survey data for individuals aged 25–61-years old and a correlated system of regressions, we examine the gendered time allocation pattern of those who frequently provide care to older persons. We find that female caregivers spend less time on market work compared to male caregivers. Our results also suggest that frequent caregiving is associated with more time spent on domestic and care work and less time on market work and self-care. On days when they don’t perform or just do little care work, frequent caregivers tend to spend long hours performing market work and reduce their time on domestic chores, care work, and leisure. Sensitivity checks confirm these findings.