Socioeconomic inequalities in the wellbeing of informal caregivers across Europe.

OBJECTIVES: Due to increasing care needs and decreasing care potentials, research around informal caregiving gains attention. Relatively new - but of utmost importance - is the role of socioeconomic inequalities in care and wellbeing. Although caregiving can be rewarding, a growing body of research shows that informal caregiving often has negative consequences for individuals' wellbeing. Theoretically, we expect these negative outcomes to be more pronounced among caregivers with lower socioeconomic resources. The current study examines socioeconomic inequalities in the consequences of caregiving inside the household for life satisfaction. METHODS: We draw on longitudinal data from the Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe (SHARE waves 2, 4, 5, and 6). We estimated pooled ordinary least squares and fixed-effects regression models to examine the consequences of informal care provision within the household for individuals' life satisfaction, and whether household wealth moderates this relationship, controlling for individuals' sociodemographic and health characteristics. RESULTS: Care provision inside the household was negatively associated with older adults' life satisfaction. The longitudinal analyses accordingly show that the uptake of care led to declines in life satisfaction. Differentiating by socioeconomic background, we find that caregivers with higher socioeconomic resources in terms of wealth generally experienced higher life satisfaction. Our longitudinal analyses on wellbeing declines reveal, however, that these mechanisms did not significantly differ by socioeconomic status of the caregiver. DISCUSSION: Our findings suggest the need for increased investments in support services for informal caregivers to mitigate caregiving burdens, irrespective of socioeconomic status, and enhance later life wellbeing.

[Changes in well-being and private support for older people: a closer look at the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in early summer 2020]. / Veränderungen von Wohlbefinden und privater Unterstützung für Ältere: ein Blick auf die Auswirkungen der COVID-19-Pandemie im Frühsommer 2020.

BACKGROUND: The pilot study "Health and Support in Times of Corona" (TU Dortmund University) collected data on support and well-being of individuals aged 40 plus years in the light of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic from May to July 2020. OBJECTIVE: The aim was to study the social and mental effects of the pandemic. We focused on individuals living in private households aged 40 years and older. Participants were asked about pandemic-related changes in receiving and providing support (e.g. personal care, help with household chores), problems arising in taking care of older persons and changes in well-being. MATERIAL AND METHODS: We conducted descriptive and multivariate analyses to show how support changed, problems with support came up and well-being changed in the light of the pandemic and how all this was related. RESULTS: Due to the pandemic older respondents in particular were no longer able to provide the necessary support for others. Especially women reported problems in taking care of older individuals. We found a decrease in well-being for all respondents but most significantly for women and individuals aged 80 years and older. Moreover, problems in the provision of care due to the pandemic and lower well-being were clearly linked. CONCLUSION: Our study showed significant changes in support patterns and well-being due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A substantial part of the respondents reported more loneliness and lower life satisfaction compared to before the pandemic, especially women supporting others. In these pandemic times, informal caregiving is severely hampered. Future pandemic-related measures should be carefully planned bearing such issues in mind.

[Importance of health indicators in the analysis of health effects on informal caregivers : Different indicator, different result?] / Bedeutung des Gesundheitsindikators bei der Analyse der Gesundheitsfolgen informeller Pflege : Anderer Indikator, anderes Ergebnis?

BACKGROUND: Analysis of the health of informal caregivers is gaining in importance. Research has shown negative effects of caregiving on mental health but the results regarding physical health were ambiguous. It remains unclear whether this can be traced back to the use of different health indicators. OBJECTIVE: Do the results on the relationship between informal caregiving and health vary depending on the care setting (domestic or external) and the outcome measure? MATERIAL AND METHODS: The relationship between informal caregiving inside and outside the domestic setting and the health of the caregiver was modelled using data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE, waves 1, 2, 4-6). The direction and strength of the relationship between informal caregiving and eight indicators of physical and mental health were compared both cross-sectionally and longitudinally. RESULTS: For most health indicators and in the cross-sectional as well as longitudinal models, negative health effects could be observed. While caregivers in the domestic setting reported worse health than non-caregivers, the opposite was true for caregivers outside the household. The longitudinal model revealed that both negative and positive health changes during informal caregiving were evident depending on the health indicator used. CONCLUSION: The results confirmed health differences between caregivers inside and caregivers outside the domestic setting. For caregivers outside the household different health outcomes of caregiving were found depending on the chosen health indicator. This underlines that the chosen health indicator as well as the care population under study substantially affect the results of the analysis and the subsequent conclusions.

Health effects of informal caregiving across Europe: A longitudinal approach.

Due to an expected increase of people in need of care, sound knowledge about health effects of informal care provision is becoming more and more important. Theoretically, there might be positive as well as negative health effects due to caregiving to relatives. Moreover, we suppose that such health effects differ by national context - since care is differently organized in Europe - and depend on the social setting in which the care relationship takes place. Using data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement (SHARE, waves 1, 2, 3, and 5) and from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA, waves 2-5) we examined the connection between informal caregiving and self-perceived as well as mental health in a country comparative perspective. Taking advantage of the longitudinal structure of the data, pooled ordinary least squares (OLS) and fixed-effects models (FEM) were estimated. Our results show distinct differences in the relationship between reported health and the provision of informal care depending on whether individuals give care to someone inside or outside the household. Caregivers inside the household reported worse health, caregivers from outside the household reported better health than non-caregivers. We find that this correlation is largely due to selection into caregiving: people in worse health took up care inside while people in better health took up care outside the household. However, in most countries people who started caregiving inside the household experienced a decline in their mental health. This suggests that caregiving inside the household results in psychological stress irrespective of the type of welfare state. The results regarding self-perceived health and caregiving outside the household are less distinct. All in all our results show that health consequences of caregiving vary not only between different welfare regimes but also between countries of similar welfare state types.