Reuters - December 01, 1999
By Karen Pallarito
NEW YORK, Dec 01 (Reuters Health) -- Americans who care for elderly family members while holding down a job pay a heavy toll in lost wages, benefits and career mobility, results of a new study suggest.
The study, conducted by the National Alliance for Caregiving and the National Center for Women and Aging at Brandeis University, concludes that the long-term costs borne by those who care for elderly loved ones are substantial.
The findings are significant because such informal care accounts for about 80% of all long-term care in the US, according to Brandeis University's Phyllis Mutschler, executive director of the National Center on Women & Aging. In other words, more older Americans receive care through such arrangements than from nursing homes, assisted living facilities, and adult daycare settings.
In dollar terms, caregivers lose an average of $659,139 over a lifetime in lost wages, retirement income, Social Security and pension benefits, the investigators report. That estimate is based on interviews with 55 people who work and spend at least 8 hours a week caring for elderly loved ones.
Beyond the direct financial loss, caregivers often lose out on promotions and training that could help them advance in their careers, the researchers suggest. Nearly one in three of the survey participants said that caregiving limited their opportunities for acquiring new skills. Overall, 40% said that caregiving hampered their ability to advance on the job in one way or another.
"It's sort of the caregiver glass ceiling," Sandra Timmermann, a gerontologist and director of MetLife's Mature Market Institute, told Reuters Health.
"In a way, companies really haven't acknowledged the fact that there are so many people caring for elderly relatives," she added.
The MetLife Institute, based in Westport, Connecticut, sponsored the study and is the geriatric research arm of the New York-based Metropolitan Life Insurance Company.
This latest study follows a 1997 MetLife-sponsored analysis, which found that lost productivity due to caregiving cost US businesses $11.4 billion to $29 billion annually. Results from that earlier study, produced by the National Alliance for Caregiving and the American Association of Retired Persons, were based on a survey of 1,509 people who provided unpaid care to a relative or friend aged 50 or older. The 55 participants in this year's study came from that earlier group.
Researchers say that the latest analysis confirms the enormous sacrifices shouldered by caregivers. "Generally, people who care for elderly loved ones are completely unaware of these losses as they accrue," said Brandeis University's Mutschler. "This study reveals the true costs to caregivers of providing assistance, which have long been trivialized."
Nearly 1 in 4 households -- some 22.4 million US families -- provide care for elderly relatives, the researchers said, and a disproportionate number of those caregivers are women.
Many caregivers in the study reported having to seek adjustments to their work schedules. For example, 84% took time to make phone calls, 69% arrived late or left early, and 67% took time off during the day.
And although 60% reported seeking some type of support at work, those arrangements often were made with supervisors and not part of an established company policy.
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