Combining Care Work and Paid Work

Demographic shifts mean that workers will increasingly face challenges of caring for ill or disabled family members. The authors use data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Young Women to assess whether employed women are more likely to leave the labor force when they start care work and whether access to workplace policies alters these patterns. They found that, as with earlier cohorts, employed women are more likely to leave the labor force after they start care work. Workers in jobs that provide access to flexible hours, unpaid family leave, and paid sick or vacation days are more likely to remain employed and maintain work hours over a two-year period, but access to job benefits has little impact on women's distress. Although most policies do not provide additional benefits for employed caregivers than for other workers, unpaid family leave does increase their employment retention.