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Encyclopedia of Gerontology and Population Aging pp 1–4Cite as

Employment and Caregiving

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Synonyms

Employment; Family caregiving; Informal caregiving; Labor force participation; Work

Overview

Employed family caregivers face difficult choices as they try to balance work and caregiving commitments. A large number of family caregivers to older adults are employed or working part time in addition to their caregiving responsibilities. In Canada, approximately 72% of women and 83% of men caregivers are employed (Lilly 2011). Role responsibilities divided between caregiving and working frequently compete and conflict; employed caregivers are described as feeling “sandwiched” (Neal and Hammer 2007) as they struggle with balancing and combining both responsibilities (Wang et al. 2018). Consequently, some working caregivers are likely to make adjustments in their work and caregiving activities (Scharlach et al. 2007; Lee et al. 2015a; Lee and Tang 2015). It is estimated that about 25% of working caregivers in Canada made work-related adjustments in order to take on caregiving...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Social Work, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

    Yeonjung Lee

Authors
  1. Yeonjung Lee
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yeonjung Lee .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Population Division, UN Dept of Economic Social Affairs Population Division, New York, NY, USA

    Danan Gu

  2. School of Medicine, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, USA

    Matthew E. Dupre

Section Editor information

  1. Institute on Aging and Lifelong Health, Department of Sociology, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada

    Neena L. Chappell Ph.D.

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Lee, Y. (2019). Employment and Caregiving. In: Gu, D., Dupre, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Gerontology and Population Aging. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69892-2_15-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69892-2_15-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-69892-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-69892-2

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Biomedicine and Life SciencesReference Module Biomedical and Life Sciences

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