Conference Agenda

In aging societies, the growing population of older adults places substantial caregiving burdens on family members, leading to adverse psychological, physical, and social effects, including social isolation. These negative outcomes are often linked to time constraints caused by prioritizing caregiving duties. Despite extensive research, socioeconomic disparities in caregiver experiences remain underexplored. Using data from the SHARE survey, this study examines how a partner's health shock (e.g., dementia, hip fracture, stroke) affects the caregiving partner’s daily time use and how socioeconomic factors influence this relationship. The results indicate that caregiving responsibilities disproportionately affect individuals with lower income, wealth, and education levels, increasing time spent providing care. Low-educated women tend to sacrifice leisure time, while highly educated women reduce paid work. Overall, European women face heightened risks of time poverty when their partner's health deteriorates.

Informal care is crucial to the wellbeing of older individuals, however, caring for older parents/parents-in-law can be a source of stress, especially when it involves intensive care. Previous studies have found social support from relatives and friends and neighbourhood social cohesion to be protective factors for caregivers' well-being. There is also evidence that area deprivation influences mental health. We use data from the UK Household Longitudinal Survey to examine whether the mental health impacts of caregiving are mediated by social support at individual and neighbourhood levels, taking account of known stressors (intensive caregiving adjusted by other individual context of stress). We hypothesise that caregivers’ reported social support from relatives or friends and reported neighbourhood social cohesion may buffer the effects of caregiving on mental health. The sample comprises 7,705 adults aged 40-65 at wave 4 who were interviewed in waves 5, 6 and 7, had a living parent or parent-in-law, and lived continuously at the same address. We examine mediation effects of overall social support, positive emotional support and negative social strain as well as the role of two measures of social cohesion, and the moderation of levels of area deprivation. Results show differing effects for light and intensive caregivers.

This study explores the association between intergenerational informal caregiving and self-rated health (SRH) among Italian caregivers, focusing on variations by gender, caregiving intensity, and employment status. We analyze data from the 2016 Italian Family, Social Subjects, and Life Cycle (FSS) ISTAT survey, including 9,757 respondents aged 35-64 with at least one living parent or parent-in-law. Logistic regression models, stratified by gender and employment status, examine SRH categorized as "good" or "very good" versus poorer health ratings. Results indicate that caregiving is associated with a lower likelihood of good SRH for both women and men, with high-intensity caregiving having a more pronounced negative effect on women's health. For employed caregivers, balancing work and caregiving appears to exacerbate health disparities, particularly for high-intensity caregivers. Conversely, inactive caregivers show no significant association between caregiving and SRH, suggesting reduced strain in the absence of employment demands. This study highlights the need for policy interventions that address the health risks associated with informal caregiving, particularly for employed women. Future analyses will incorporate Poisson regression and Propensity Score Matching, using caregiving as the treatment variable, to strengthen causal inferences.

Spatial proximity between family members is a structural characteristic shaping contact and support provision. Register data suggests that older adults without the core family (partners and children) are more likely to live close to their siblings. However, as register data did not include information on social interactions and support exchange between siblings, it remains unclear whether older adults without a core family also receive more social support from siblings and whether they receive more support irrespective of the intragenerational geographic proximity. We propose to examine (1) how the absence of children or/and a partner is associated with frequent contact with and receiving practical help from siblings in later life and (2) how intragenerational geographic proximity shapes these associations. This study utilizes multilevel logistic regression models and population-based survey data from Finland (Gentrans). Preliminary results suggest that older adults with neither a partner nor children are more likely to receive practical help from siblings and communicate with them at least once a week than those with core family members present. The likelihood of receiving help is higher for older adults without core kin than for those with both a partner and a child even if a sibling does not live nearby.