Elder care is taking heavy toll on mature age women workers
The responsibility for taking care of older family members almost always falls to the women in the family, whether they have jobs outside the home or not. These responsibilities are going to be increasing greatly over the next decade, a report has found. This necessary, but informal unpaid work is done mostly by women who are from 35 to 54 years old and endure many negative effects from having that responsibility. Having aged dependents means that carers have difficulty maintaining a regular work routine so either change jobs frequently, work reduced hours, or have to refuse any offers of promotion in order to be available to provide care. The time away from employment works to their disadvantage, as does the social and professional isolation.
Until now there has been very little interest in doing any research on this invisible area of women’s work, such as looking into the problems they face in the labour market, and what their needs for flexible work actually are. The report published in October 2009 is entitled Taking Care: Mature Age Workers With Elder Care Responsibilities. This research was conducted by the University of Sydney’s ‘Women and Work Research Group’, and commissioned by the Women’s Equity Bureau of NSW Industrial Relations.
The government’s interest was two-fold, in that it wants to increase the number of mature age women available to participate fully in the work force as the ‘baby boomer’ generation retires and to bolster their savings for more self sufficiency in retirement, but it also needs to provide appropriate care to the increasing ageing population; these two goals seem to be on a collision course. Women’s labour is very much needed both at home and in the workplace. This study examined these contradictory demands and made some recommendations.
Key findings included the fact that the needs of carers of elderly people differs from those of carers of children, and that the cost of being a carer is enormous – whether that involves the sacrifice of steady work and future economic security by carers, or the cost paid by the government to replace them with a paid care-giver. There were additional personal costs to carers such as the loss of workplace skills while away from the workforce, adverse health and social effects from inactivity and isolation, and resulting work-life imbalance.
The need for the flexible work arrangements for those carers who wish to work was evident. Flexible work arrangements currently available do not apply to those with elder care responsibilities, only those with children: the National Employment Standards contained in the Fair Work Act which will commence in January 2010, will enable carers of under school-age children, or children under 18 who have a disability, to request changes to working arrangements from their employers. This legislation will not apply to carers of people over 18 with a disability, or to carers of the aged. These issues facing our society are very complex and there are no easy answers. To read the report online please click here.
