Literature grid of included studies
| Authors | Year | Title | Journal | Objectives/RQ | Sample | Definition informal caregiver | Theoretical framework/models/concepts | Study design/Methodology | CASP remarks | Findings | Theme(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bainbridge, Palm, Fong | 2021 | Unpaid family caregiving responsibilities, employee job tasks and work-family conflict: A cross-cultural study | Human Resource Management Journal | By what process does gender affect work-family conflict? Under what conditions does gender affect work-family conflict? We assess the influence of context by examining how societal values in the form of a gender egalitarianism shape the association between gender and job tasks | EWCS sample: respondents whose primary activity was employment and were caregivers (n = 8,692) | caregivers are mostly female; caregiver helps with company (49%), shopping (42%), cleaning and property upkeep (34%), mobility (33%), cooking (32%), finance and administration (30%), dressing (27%), bathing/showering (24%), feeding (23%) and coordinating professional carers | attachment theory, conservation of resources theory | secondary analysis, 2 level design, multilevel regression with random intercepts | gender egalitarianism seems to widen the gender care gap rather than decreasing it: with rising gender egalitarianism female care remains constant, while male care decreases (contrary to findings in family and child care research); the mediated relationship between gender and work-family conflict is moderated by gender egalitarianism | labour market participation; social experiences and norms | |
| Bywaters, Harris | 1998 | Supporting carers: is practice still sexist? | Health and Social Care in the Community | to compare the support services which were offered to male clients with female spousal carers and those allocated to female clients with male spousal carers | proxy sample: spousal carers via care recipients (“clients”) and professional workers, UK | people providing unpaid care work for elderly | 0 (just hypothesis of pattern: female carers receive/are offered less support than male carers) | primary analysis; three parts: 1) type, frequency and duration of services was analysed (clients), 2) two vignettes to test professional care worker’s response to certain situations, 3) questionnaire to ask care manager’s opinions about service provision to male and female carers | (numbers too small for statistical significance! n = 54) although female spousal caregivers face higher dependency among their “patients”, male spousal caregivers seem to receive more support/support at an earlier stage; female and male clients (=care-recipients) received different support in different tasks (- > diff. support for male/female caregivers); care managers tend to give more support to male clients (with female caregivers) (but n = 13) - > support services might be used differently depending on caregivers' gender (bc. of assumptions made for them/bc. they ask for different support?) | social experiences and norms | |
| Heger, Korfhage | 2020 | Short- and Medium-Term Effects of Informal Eldercare on Labor Market Outcomes | Feminist Economics | This paper analyses how caregiving to parents affects mature caregivers’ labor market participation in the short and medium terms. (Heger and Korfhage, 2020, S. 3) | SHARE sample: 50–70 yr olds in Europe and Israel that have given practical or household help within the last 12 months - > older carers (n = 16,295) | person who provided daily or almost daily care to a parent; women more likely to provide care than men | substitution effect, income effect, opportunity costs | secondary analysis, 2 step regression model (IV approach), stratified by gender | female caregivers rather adjust working hours; male caregivers rather exit the labour market (retirement) | labour market participation | |
| Heitmüller, Inglis | 2007 | The earnings of informal carers: Wage differentials and opportunity costs | Journal of Health Economics | to explore whether informal carers engaging in gainful employment face wage discrimination (Heitmueller and Inglis, S. 3) | caregivers/potential caregivers, BHPS (UK), only individuals who are aged 16–64 (59 for women), residing in England and not working for the armed forces or in self-employment have been included (Heitmueller and Inglis, S. 3) | working age individuals looking after sick, disabled or elderly people living in the same household/not living in same hh | substitution effect, income effect, opportunity costs | secondary analysis; decomposition of wage differentials | there are opportunity costs for individuals as well as opp. costs on policy level - > individual trade-off and policy trade-off | labour market participation; economic costs | |
| Kolodziej, Reichert, Schmitz | 2018 | New Evidence on Employment Effects of Informal Care Provision in Europe | Health Services Research | To estimate how labor force participation is affected when adult children provide informal care to their parents. (Kolodziej et al., S. 1) examine the effect of informal care provided by adult children to their dependent elderly parents on labor market participation (Kolodziej et al., S. 3) | proxy sample of SHARE-respondents (50 and older) with a health status indicating they are in need of care, 2004 - 2013, n=15.662 | adult children, who provide care to their dependent parents | 0 | secondary analysis; OLS regressions with and without accounting for endogeneity, linear probability model | caregiving to a parent in need decreases the probability of working (effect is larger for men, but not significant); differences between Northern and Southern/Eastern European countries | labour market participation | |
| Kotsadam | 2012 | The employment costs of caregiving in Norway | International Journal of Health Care Finance and Economics | Hence, while there is a clear negative effect of being an intensive informal caregiver on employment in Anglo-Saxon welfare states, much less is known about the relationship in other contexts. There are conflicting evidence as well as divergence in theoretical hypotheses on the Nordic welfare states, and the present study aims to enhance the discussion by taking a close look at the effects of informal care on the probability of being employed, the number of hours worked and wages in Norway | LOGG sample: Norwegian respondents 18–65 with at least 1 parent alive (n = around 7,000–8,000 - different models) | supportive efforts from family and other parties, such as friends, neighbours and volunteers in long-term elderly care; people in Norway that have given regular help with personal care such as eating, getting up in the morning, getting dressed, bathing or using the toilet over the last 12 months (small children excluded) | opportunity costs | secondary analysis, IV approach (2 level regression model) | being an instensive caregiver in Norway is negatively correlated with being employed (being a caregiver per se too, but not significant) - but not on wages; macro-level (institutional) factors are important in mediating effects of caregiving on employment-related outcomes | labour market participation; economic costs | |
| Maresova, Lee, Fadeyi, Kuca | 2020 | The social and economic burden on family caregivers for older adults in the Czech Republic | BMC Geriatrics | to determine the economic burden of informal caregivers | convenience sample: asked professional workers in Czech care centers/agencies to bring them inf caregivers (n= 155 informal caregivers) | person providing home care: home care as the provision of nursing care, meals and personal care, as well as ad-ministration of drugs and injections, among other activities. (Maresova et al., S. 4) | opportunity costs | primary analysis, quantitative questionnaire, Spearman rank correlation; secondary analysis of publicly available sources for complementation | annual economic costs of ∼40,000€ per caregiver -> since women provide the most iLTC in Czech Republic, they might be most affected [weak finding - actually just an interpretation of descriptives] | social experiences and norms; economic costs | |
| Mortensen, Dich, Lange, Alexanderson, Goldberg, Head, Kivimäki, Madsen, Rugulies, Vahtera, Zins, Rod | 2022 | Job strain and informal caregiving as predictors of long-term sickness absence: A longitudinal multi-cohort study | Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment and Health | to investigate the joint exposure of job strain and informal caregiving as predictors of long-term sickness absence | caregivers and potential caregivers from GAZEL (France), FPS (Finland), Whitehall II (UK), total n = 26,800 | person providing unpaid assistance with ADLs for sick, disabled or elderly relatives >4 h a week | role accumulation theory | secondary analysis, recurrent-events Cox regression in random-effects meta-analyses (5_14_mortensen, S. 2) | 4 & 5: can’t tell (secondary analysis) | iLTC is a predictor of longterm sickness absence among women (and also job strain); combination of iLTC and job strain is a predictor for longterm sickness absence among women, but not more than expected from each component individually (no interactive effect) compared to women without high job strain/caring responsibilities | labour market participation; social experiences and norms |
| Schneider, Trukeschitz, Mühlmann, Ponocny | 2013 | “Do I stay or do I go” - Job change and labor market exit intentions of employees providing informal care to older adults | Health Economics | to examine whether providing informal eldercare predicts employees' intentions to change jobs or exit the labor market and which aspects of caregiving and their current work environment shapes these intentions | proxy sample of federal LTC allowance recipients 60 years and older living in private households in Vienna (p. 1236), n=902 | main caregiver: family member, neighbor or friend who provided the largest share of informal help | turnover model, human capital decision framework, opportunity costs | primary analysis; multinomial logistic regression (human capital model) | 7: not reported | there is a gender difference in care-related change/exit of labour market; informal carers=/= homogenous group; more hours of eldercare -> higher risk of anticipated LM exit for male workers; LM exit/job change less likely for female workers with eldercare, if working flexitime; with rising nr of ADLs the care-recipient is helped with -> higher chance of LM exit for male workers; if there is a need for care-recipient to be overseen -> lower LM exit for female workers (work as respite) | labour market participation |
| Swinkels, van Groenou, de Boer, van Tilburg | 2019 | Male and Female Partner-Caregivers’ Burden: Does It Get Worse Over Time? | The Gerontologist | This study examines to what degree and why partner-caregiver burden changes over time | partner/spousal caregivers from TOPICS-MDS (n= 722), Netherlands | partner/spousal care - help when partner experiences health problems | wear-and-tear model, adaptation model | secondary analysis; 1 year interval, multilevel regression analysis, stratified by gender (Swinkels et al., S. 1) | caregiver burden increased over time for male and female caregivers; spousal care is more burdensome for female carers than male carers; more support for wear-and-tear-model: impact of care-recipient's health on caregiver's burden increases over time while impact of fulfillment to alleviate burden decreases; only 1 supporting finding for adaptation-model: impact of combining care with other activities on burden decreased for female carers over time | social experiences and norms | |
| Zwar, Angermeyer, Matschinger, Riedel-Heller, König, Hajek | 2021 | Are informal family caregivers stigmatized differently based on their gender or employment status?: a German study on public stigma towards informal long-term caregivers of older individuals | BMC Public Health | to analyze if the society expresses a different stigma towards female or male, and towards working or nonworking caregivers. In other words, this study analyzes if the gender and working status of informal caregivers is of relevance for the public stigma expressed towards them by the general population | German general population (n= 1,038 adults), quota sample | In this study informal care is defined as family care for a person aged ≥65 years (aged care recipient), provided by adult children (Zwar et al., S. 2) | stigma: public stigma, courtesy stigma, | primary analysis; vignettes within online survey, cross-sectional | reading about a male instead of female carer was significantly associated with increased social distance scores; same for male working caregivers; increased appreciative statements towards working female carers compared to non-working female carers -> overall: female cg. appreciated when working; male cg. stigmatized, especially when not working/cutting back in working hours -> societal preference for combination of work and care and female caregivers! | labour market participation; social experiences and norms |
| Authors | Year | Title | Journal | Objectives/RQ | Sample | Definition informal caregiver | Theoretical framework/models/concepts | Study design/Methodology | CASP remarks | Findings | Theme(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bainbridge, Palm, Fong | 2021 | Unpaid family caregiving responsibilities, employee job tasks and work-family conflict: A cross-cultural study | Human Resource Management Journal | By what process does gender affect work-family conflict? Under what conditions does gender affect work-family conflict? We assess the influence of context by examining how societal values in the form of a gender egalitarianism shape the association between gender and job tasks | EWCS sample: respondents whose primary activity was employment and were caregivers ( | caregivers are mostly female; caregiver helps with company (49%), shopping (42%), cleaning and property upkeep (34%), mobility (33%), cooking (32%), finance and administration (30%), dressing (27%), bathing/showering (24%), feeding (23%) and coordinating professional carers | attachment theory, conservation of resources theory | secondary analysis, 2 level design, multilevel regression with random intercepts | gender egalitarianism seems to widen the gender care gap rather than decreasing it: with rising gender egalitarianism female care remains constant, while male care decreases (contrary to findings in family and child care research); the mediated relationship between gender and work-family conflict is moderated by gender egalitarianism | labour market participation; social experiences and norms | |
| Bywaters, Harris | 1998 | Supporting carers: is practice still sexist? | Health and Social Care in the Community | to compare the support services which were offered to male clients with female spousal carers and those allocated to female clients with male spousal carers | proxy sample: spousal carers via care recipients (“clients”) and professional workers, UK | people providing unpaid care work for elderly | 0 (just hypothesis of pattern: female carers receive/are offered less support than male carers) | primary analysis; three parts: 1) type, frequency and duration of services was analysed (clients), 2) two vignettes to test professional care worker’s response to certain situations, 3) questionnaire to ask care manager’s opinions about service provision to male and female carers | (numbers too small for statistical significance! | social experiences and norms | |
| Heger, Korfhage | 2020 | Short- and Medium-Term Effects of Informal Eldercare on Labor Market Outcomes | Feminist Economics | This paper analyses how caregiving to parents affects mature caregivers’ labor market participation in the short and medium terms. ( | SHARE sample: 50–70 yr olds in Europe and Israel that have given practical or household help within the last 12 months - > older carers ( | person who provided daily or almost daily care to a parent; women more likely to provide care than men | substitution effect, income effect, opportunity costs | secondary analysis, 2 step regression model (IV approach), stratified by gender | female caregivers rather adjust working hours; male caregivers rather exit the labour market (retirement) | labour market participation | |
| Heitmüller, Inglis | 2007 | The earnings of informal carers: Wage differentials and opportunity costs | Journal of Health Economics | to explore whether informal carers engaging in gainful employment face wage discrimination (Heitmueller and Inglis, S. 3) | caregivers/potential caregivers, BHPS (UK), only individuals who are aged 16–64 (59 for women), residing in England and not working for the armed forces or in self-employment have been included (Heitmueller and Inglis, S. 3) | working age individuals looking after sick, disabled or elderly people living in the same household/not living in same hh | substitution effect, income effect, opportunity costs | secondary analysis; decomposition of wage differentials | there are opportunity costs for individuals as well as opp. costs on policy level - > individual trade-off and policy trade-off | labour market participation; economic costs | |
| Kolodziej, Reichert, Schmitz | 2018 | New Evidence on Employment Effects of Informal Care Provision in Europe | Health Services Research | To estimate how labor force participation is affected when adult children provide informal care to their parents. (Kolodziej | proxy sample of SHARE-respondents (50 and older) with a health status indicating they are in need of care, 2004 - 2013, n=15.662 | adult children, who provide care to their dependent parents | 0 | secondary analysis; OLS regressions with and without accounting for endogeneity, linear probability model | caregiving to a parent in need decreases the probability of working (effect is larger for men, but not significant); differences between Northern and Southern/Eastern European countries | labour market participation | |
| Kotsadam | 2012 | The employment costs of caregiving in Norway | International Journal of Health Care Finance and Economics | Hence, while there is a clear negative effect of being an intensive informal caregiver on employment in Anglo-Saxon welfare states, much less is known about the relationship in other contexts. There are conflicting evidence as well as divergence in theoretical hypotheses on the Nordic welfare states, and the present study aims to enhance the discussion by taking a close look at the effects of informal care on the probability of being employed, the number of hours worked and wages in Norway | LOGG sample: Norwegian respondents 18–65 with at least 1 parent alive ( | supportive efforts from family and other parties, such as friends, neighbours and volunteers in long-term elderly care; people in Norway that have given regular help with personal care such as eating, getting up in the morning, getting dressed, bathing or using the toilet over the last 12 months (small children excluded) | opportunity costs | secondary analysis, IV approach (2 level regression model) | being an instensive caregiver in Norway is negatively correlated with being employed (being a caregiver | labour market participation; economic costs | |
| Maresova, Lee, Fadeyi, Kuca | 2020 | The social and economic burden on family caregivers for older adults in the Czech Republic | BMC Geriatrics | to determine the economic burden of informal caregivers | convenience sample: asked professional workers in Czech care centers/agencies to bring them inf caregivers (n= 155 informal caregivers) | person providing home care: home care as the provision of nursing care, meals and personal care, as well as ad-ministration of drugs and injections, among other activities. (Maresova | opportunity costs | primary analysis, quantitative questionnaire, Spearman rank correlation; secondary analysis of publicly available sources for complementation | annual economic costs of ∼40,000€ per caregiver -> since women provide the most iLTC in Czech Republic, they might be most affected [weak finding - actually just an interpretation of descriptives] | social experiences and norms; economic costs | |
| Mortensen, Dich, Lange, Alexanderson, Goldberg, Head, Kivimäki, Madsen, Rugulies, Vahtera, Zins, Rod | 2022 | Job strain and informal caregiving as predictors of long-term sickness absence: A longitudinal multi-cohort study | Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment and Health | to investigate the joint exposure of job strain and informal caregiving as predictors of long-term sickness absence | caregivers and potential caregivers from GAZEL (France), FPS (Finland), Whitehall II (UK), total | person providing unpaid assistance with ADLs for sick, disabled or elderly relatives >4 h a week | role accumulation theory | secondary analysis, recurrent-events Cox regression in random-effects meta-analyses (5_14_mortensen, S. 2) | 4 & 5: can’t tell (secondary analysis) | iLTC is a predictor of longterm sickness absence among women (and also job strain); combination of iLTC and job strain is a predictor for longterm sickness absence among women, but not more than expected from each component individually (no interactive effect) compared to women without high job strain/caring responsibilities | labour market participation; social experiences and norms |
| Schneider, Trukeschitz, Mühlmann, Ponocny | 2013 | “Do I stay or do I go” - Job change and labor market exit intentions of employees providing informal care to older adults | Health Economics | to examine whether providing informal eldercare predicts employees' intentions to change jobs or exit the labor market and which aspects of caregiving and their current work environment shapes these intentions | proxy sample of federal LTC allowance recipients 60 years and older living in private households in Vienna (p. 1236), n=902 | main caregiver: family member, neighbor or friend who provided the largest share of informal help | turnover model, human capital decision framework, opportunity costs | primary analysis; multinomial logistic regression (human capital model) | 7: not reported | there is a gender difference in care-related change/exit of labour market; informal carers=/= homogenous group; more hours of eldercare -> higher risk of anticipated LM exit for male workers; LM exit/job change less likely for female workers with eldercare, if working flexitime; with rising nr of ADLs the care-recipient is helped with -> higher chance of LM exit for male workers; if there is a need for care-recipient to be overseen -> lower LM exit for female workers (work as respite) | labour market participation |
| Swinkels, van Groenou, de Boer, van Tilburg | 2019 | Male and Female Partner-Caregivers’ Burden: Does It Get Worse Over Time? | The Gerontologist | This study examines to what degree and why partner-caregiver burden changes over time | partner/spousal caregivers from TOPICS-MDS (n= 722), Netherlands | partner/spousal care - help when partner experiences health problems | wear-and-tear model, adaptation model | secondary analysis; 1 year interval, multilevel regression analysis, stratified by gender (Swinkels | caregiver burden increased over time for male and female caregivers; spousal care is more burdensome for female carers than male carers; more support for wear-and-tear-model: impact of care-recipient's health on caregiver's burden increases over time while impact of fulfillment to alleviate burden decreases; only 1 supporting finding for adaptation-model: impact of combining care with other activities on burden decreased for female carers over time | social experiences and norms | |
| Zwar, Angermeyer, Matschinger, Riedel-Heller, König, Hajek | 2021 | Are informal family caregivers stigmatized differently based on their gender or employment status?: a German study on public stigma towards informal long-term caregivers of older individuals | BMC Public Health | to analyze if the society expresses a different stigma towards female or male, and towards working or nonworking caregivers. In other words, this study analyzes if the gender and working status of informal caregivers is of relevance for the public stigma expressed towards them by the general population | German general population (n= 1,038 adults), quota sample | In this study informal care is defined as family care for a person aged ≥65 years (aged care recipient), provided by adult children (Zwar | stigma: public stigma, courtesy stigma, | primary analysis; vignettes within online survey, cross-sectional | reading about a male instead of female carer was significantly associated with increased social distance scores; same for male working caregivers; increased appreciative statements towards working female carers compared to non-working female carers -> overall: female cg. appreciated when working; male cg. stigmatized, especially when not working/cutting back in working hours -> societal preference for combination of work and care and female caregivers! | labour market participation; social experiences and norms |
Source(s): Table created by the authors