CAREGIVING AND WORK: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LABOR MARKET ATTACHMENT AND PARENTAL CAREGIVING

Abstract

There has been much concern over the provision of long-term care and the stresses it imposes on the family members who provide that care. In this study, we examine the relationship between parental caregiving and work using data from the Health and Retirement Study. We use two identification strategies. First, we exploit the long panel dimension of our data to estimate fixed effects models for the relationship between caregiving and work. Second, we use linked data from the Social Security Administration on earnings histories to control for a woman’s labor market behavior long before the potential need to provide care. We find evidence that caregivers have at least a strong, and by some measures a stronger, relationship to the labor market than non-caregivers. We find some evidence that caregiving has negative long-term effects on employment and earnings and can thus be detrimental to the financial well-being of caregivers.