Abstract: Evolving socio-demographic trends such as changing gender norms, increasing labour participation of women and shifts in marriage and divorce rates have been portrayed as factors endangering informal caregiving in the face of population ageing. Conversely, some of these same changes could act towards men taking up a greater share of informal caregiving, thus resulting in a more gender equal distribution of care.
We take a dynamic view of gender patterns in informal caregiving for older people across Europe to answer the following research questions:
- has there been an evolution in the gender gap in informal caregiving, due to changes in informal caregiving by women and/or men; and
- has the gender gap in informal caregiving evolved differently across different regions of Europe?
To answer these questions, we apply multilevel growth curve models to a panel sample of individuals aged 50 and older, grouped into 5-year cohorts and followed across 5 waves of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), stratified by sex and adjusted for socio-economic conditions, health and living arrangements across cohorts. We analyse gendered informal care trajectories across cohorts for care inside and outside the household. For both women and men there was a decrease in the probability of providing informal care outside the household among later born cohorts, with a more pronounced declined for men, and a resulting widening gender care gap. The probability of providing care inside the household has increased for later born cohorts for all without discernible changes to the gender care gap. Gender care gaps overall were closing among later born cohorts in the Continental cluster, while they were widening among Southern European countries.
We discuss the results in view of cohort trajectories of health in old-age (possible demographic-based explanations for our findings) and association of gender egalitarian norms at the individual level with probability to care (possible social-based explanations for our findings).
The meeting will be held as a physical seminar in the SAM seminar/sam mødelokale M and will also be open to participants online via Zoom.