LISS panel Grant 2019. Authors: Ellen Verbakel (Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen – Faculteit der Sociale Wetenschappen)
The provision of informal care is suggested to go hand in hand with employment reductions. The greater demand for informal caregiving in contemporary society therefore requires a thorough understanding of the total impact of informal caregiving on employment careers. With the collection of retrospective informal caregiving career data, I aim to fill three gaps in the literature. First, it allows me to empirically test the theoretical claim that it is especially the cumulative nature of caregiving demands over time that causes negative consequences for the caregiver. Second, it allows for assessing long-term employment consequences of providing informal care, even after caregiving has ended. Third, it allows the study of life-stage differences in caregiving careers and its employment consequences. I propose to ask a sample of 2,500 respondents to reconstruct episodes in their life course in which they provided informal care and to provide information on this caregiving episode (intensity, tasks, care by others, health situation care receiver), their experiences and motivations, and their experiences regarding combining work and care.