GENDER GAP STILL THERE FOR ELDER CARE
Despite Title 9 and the Equal Pay Act as well as significant strides made in women’s rights and gender roles, it turns out things still haven’t changed that much for American women when it comes to caring for the home and family. While many men do actively participate in childcare and housework, women are still primarily responsible for both.
In addition, woman also spend more time caring for their aging parents too, according to a research study presented in August 2014 during an annual meeting of the American Sociological Association in San Francisco. Looking specifically at spouses, Princeton University doctoral student and author of the study, Angelina Grigoryeva, found that each spouse generally tends to care for his or her own parents. However, once siblings are factored in, the equality of elder care shifts. Analyzing data collected from University of Michigan Health and Retirement Study, Grigoryeva discovered that daughters provide an average of 12.3 hours of elder care per month, while sons provide 5.6 hours per month.
Quoted in Time, she said, “the results suggest that daughters try to provide as much care as they can, while sons only step in when there’s nobody else to do it.” However, she also points out, “the difference between elder care and housework is that the former is very hands-on, and often requires intimacy, so mothers might tend to prefer to be helped by their daughters rather than their sons.”
Another factor to consider is that since women out live men, there are more elderly females to care for overall, potentially contributing to skewed statistics. So while there is an increasing global dialogue about the aging population, who will care for the elderly still seems to primarily fall on female family members.
When the time has come to care for your aging loved one or your family member is no longer able to live independently, please let California Registry help you. The knowledgeable staff at CalRegistry will help you find elder care services or an assisted living facility within California that is customized for your situation.