Young adults with disabilities: health, employment and financial costs for family carers

In this paper, the health and employment of mothers with a severely disabled young adult are compared with those of women in the general population. Mothers in the sample were much more likely to suffer from a severe chronic illness and to experience symptoms of psychiatric disturbance. Their workforce participation, hours of work and earnings were all lower than for women in general. Variations in mothers' health status and employment patterns could not be explained by aspects of their sons' or daughters' disablement. It seemed that mothers of all disabled young adults, not only mothers of the more severely disabled, experienced adverse effects of providing care in the family. Implications of these findings are discussed.