Combining Work and Care for Older Parents (CoWorkCare)

In this research project the researchers aims to generate new knowledge on how senior employees' care obligations for their older parents affect their labour market participation.

The primary objective of CoWorkCare is to generate new knowledge on how senior employees' care obligations for their older parents affect their labour market participation, and to disseminate this knowledge to informed policymaking promoting extended and full-time working lives for employees.  

Trends in population ageing constitute a potentially important policy dilemma with respect to the organization of elderly care.

On the one hand, the probable rise in care requirements, in combination with the challenges related to the fiscal sustainability of the welfare state, suggest that we need to mobilize family resources in order to provide long-term care for older people.

On the other hand, the mobilization of family resources may make it difficult for caregivers to participate fully in the labour market, and this may again undermine the fiscal sustainability.

By analysing register data the project will identify and quantify the effects of having a care-needing parent on the supply of labour and the demand for social insurance benefits, and examine how effects are mediated by (combinations of) individual characteristics, enterprises characteristics in different sectors and industries, and family situation

Further collect survey data and investigate various groups of employees’ experiences and need for support.

In addition, the project will conduct case studies among enterprises in different sectors and enterprises in Norway, Sweden and Denmark to investigate conflicts of interest between employees and employers in different sectors and industries.

Based on the findings, the research group will discuss policy with stakeholders.