The Wage Penalty for Parental Caregiving: Has It Declined Over Time?
| Published date | 01 April 2019 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12555 |
| Author | Rebecca Glauber |
| Date | 01 April 2019 |
R G University of New Hampshire
The Wage Penalty for Parental Caregiving: Has It
Declined Over Time?
Objective: This study analyzed differences in the
wage penalty for parental caregiving between
early Baby Boomers and the previous genera-
tion.
Background: Research has exploredthe associ-
ation between parental caregiving and women’s
labor market outcomes, but few studies have
conducted cross-cohort analyses.
Method: This study used nationally represen-
tative data from the Health and Retirement
Study (HRS) and compared two cohorts of indi-
viduals aged 50 to 64. One cohort was born
between 1931 and 1941, and the other was born
between 1948 and 1953. The 1994 to 2012 waves
of the HRS were pooled, and multivariate xed
effects regression models were used to estimate
the associations among birth cohort, parental
caregiving, and women’s and men’s log hourly
wages.
Results: Intense parental caregiving was asso-
ciated with a 4.8% reduction in women’s wages.
Baby Boom women did not fare better than their
predecessors. Moreover, despite a substantial
increase in Baby Boom men’s parental care,
the association between caregiving and their
labor market outcomes was negligible. Similar
to their predecessors, married and unmarried
Baby Boom men did not pay wage penalties
for parental caregiving.
Department of Sociology, 15 Academic Way, University of
New Hampshire, Durham, NH 03824
(rebecca.glauber@unh.edu).
Key Words: aging, caregiving, elder care, employment,
gender,work-family issues.
Conclusion: These results extend our under-
standing of the gendered life course and suggest
that parental caregivingmay contribute to older
women’s economic disadvantage.
Nearly one in four U.S. adults care for an aging
family member or friend, and this number is only
expected to rise (Feinberg, Reinhard, Houser,
& Choula, 2011). The market value of care, or
the cost of replacing all unpaid care with paid
care, was $450 billion in 2009, which was more
than total federal and state Medicaid spend-
ing (Feinberg et al., 2011). Unpaid care is a
critical component of the U.S. economy, and
caregivers constitute what Bookman and Har-
rington (2007) labeled a “shadow workforce.”
Caregiving responsibilities often arise during
the peak of women’s and men’s careers. More
than half of all caregivers work full-time, and
more than two thirds have requested workplace
accommodations (National Alliance for Care-
giving & American Association of Retired Per-
sons, 2009). These choices are costly. A recent
study found that 21% of women experienced
nancial strain due to caregiving (Ranji & Sal-
ganicoff, 2011), and nearly 40% had reduced or
stopped saving for the future (Evercare, 2007).
Women are more likely than men to provide
care (Gerstel & Gallagher, 2001; Kahn, McGill,
& Bianchi, 2011; Pavalko & Wolfe, 2016;
Pinquart & Sörenson, 2006), and caregiving
has more adverse effects on women’s health
(Caputo, Pavalko, & Hardy, 2016; Chesley &
Moen, 2006; Marks, 1998; Marks, Lambert, &
Choi, 2002; Pinquart & Sörenson, 2006, 2011).
A handful of studies have also focused on
Journal of Marriage and Family 81 (April 2019): 415–433 415
DOI:10.1111/jomf.12555
416 Journal of Marriage and Family
caregiving and U.S. women’s and men’s labor
market outcomes. These studies have shown
that parental caregiving is associated with a
reduction in women’s income and earnings (Van
Houtven, Coe, & Skira, 2013; Wakabayashi
& Donato, 2005, 2006), but crucial questions
remain unanswered. Namely, has the parental
caregiving penalty declined over time? Are the
Baby Boomers doing better than their prede-
cessors? The current study is one of the rst to
explore differences in parental caregiving penal-
ties between Baby Boomers and the previous
generation.
Baby Boom women and men came of age dur-
ing tremendous cultural and structural change.
When compared with earlier generations, Baby
Boom women had fewer children, more educa-
tion, and a much stronger attachment to the labor
force (e.g., Bhatt, 2017; Blau & Kahn, 2016;
Goldin, 2004; Quinn, 2010). Baby Boom men
were more likely to be married to women who
worked throughout their lives, and they spent
more time with their children than men in earlier
generations (Bianchi, Sayer, Milkie, & Robin-
son, 2012; Sayer, 2005). The question is if these
large-scale changes reduced gender disparities
and the earnings penalty incurred by caregiving
women.
The current study analyzed nationally repre-
sentative panel data from the Health and Retire-
ment Study (HRS; http://hrsonline.isr.umich.
edu/) and examined the relationship between
caregiving and labor market outcomes for
those who were between the ages of 50 and
64. Two cohorts were compared—one born
between 1948 and 1953, referred to as Early
Baby Boomers or Baby Boomers throughout,
and another born between 1931 and 1941 who
comprised the original HRS cohort. Person-level
xed effects models were estimated, and they
controlled for numerous factors including labor
market experience, age, and health. The results
show that parental caregiving was associated
with a 4.8% reduction in women’s hourly wages.
Baby Boom women and their predecessors paid
the same penalty. Moreover, despite a substan-
tial increase in Baby Boom men’s provision
of intense parental care (dened in this study
as providing 5 or more hours per week), the
actual association between caregiving and their
labor market outcomes was negligible. Similar
to their predecessors, married and unmarried
Baby Boom men did not pay a wage penalty
for intense parental caregiving. The concluding
section of this study discusses how these ndings
broaden our understanding of the family gap
in pay (Waldfogel, 1998) and the gendered life
course (Moen, 2016; Moen, Lam, & Jackson,
2014; Pavalko, 2011). But rst I reviewprevious
research on the gendered experience of care.
B
The Gendered Experience of Care
A few decades ago, Brody (1985) argued that
parent care had become a normative, stressful
experience for middle-aged women. Today,
about 60% of caregivers are women (National
Alliance for Caregiving and AARP, 2015), and
most women provide care to an ill or disabled
family member at some point during their
lives (Moen, Robison, & Dempster-McClain,
1995). Earlier studies indicated that compared
to men, women were about three times more
likely to care for their elderly parents (Chang &
White-Means, 1991). A more recent study found
that 64% of women and 53% of men engaged
in parental care (Kahn et al., 2011). Women
are not only more likely than men to assume
responsibility for elder care but also they spend
more time caring (Pinquart & Sörenson, 2006).
Gerstel and Gallagher (2001), for example,
found that men spent about 2 hours per week
caring for their parents, whereas women spent
about 6 hours per week caring for their parents.
Women are more likely than men to help
their parents with personal care, such as bathing,
dressing, and feeding (National Alliance for
Caregiving and the Center for Productive Aging,
2003). Women are also more likely to pro-
vide emotional support, advice, and encourage-
ment (Chesley & Poppie, 2009; Kahn et al.,
2011; Sarkisian & Gerstel, 2008). Campbell and
Martin-Matthews (2003) found that men were
more likely to assist with tasks that they viewed
as less feminine, such as managing their parents’
nances or helping with home maintenance and
repairs. Kahn et al. (2011) found that this was
true for married men who were in their 50s but
not for married men who were in their 60s. These
older married men were less likely than women
to help their parents with housework, yard work,
and repairs. Studies have also shown that women
pull men into networks of care, and they are
more likely to provide care if their wives provide
care (Gerstel & Gallagher, 2001).
Both cultural and structural models help
us understand the gender gap in caregiving.
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