Informal Elderly Caregiving and Time Spent on Leisure: Evidence from Time Use Survey
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Informal Elderly Caregiving and Time Spent on Leisure: Evidence from Time Use Survey Magdalena Rokicka 1
& Olga
Zajkowska 2
Accepted: 18 September 2020/ Published online: 30 September 2020 # The Author(s) 2020
Abstract This paper examines the risk of time poverty defined as leisure participation among informal caregivers of adults and older people. We draw on the most recent time use survey conducted in Poland, which incorporated more than 28,000 households in 2013. We assess the extent to which caregivers are more likely to experience shortages of time spent on physical activity, hobbies, and social life. Additional information about respondents’ time preferences allows us to examine not only the objective and relative time deficits of caregivers, but also the subjective and expressed ones. We distinguish between co-resident caregivers and those living outside the household of care recipients, simultaneously accounting for the differences between male and female caregivers, as well as care provided during working days (Monday-Friday), and that provided on weekends (Saturday-Sunday). Our results indicate that caregivers for adults are in general more likely to allocate less time to physical activity, hobbies, and their social lives. This effect, however, is observed primarily among co-resident caregivers, both male and female. The leisure time of caregivers is more noticeably affected during weekends than on working days. Concurrently, caregivers are more likely to admit that they wish to spend more time on different forms of leisure activity. This confirms the hypothesis of a trade-off between time allocated to elderly care and that allocated to self-care, which can be detrimental to the health, life satisfaction, and wellbeing of informal caregivers. Keywords Elderly informal care . Leisure . Time poverty . Time use JEL Classifications J14 . J22
* Magdalena Rokicka [email protected] Olga Zajkowska [email protected] Extended author information available on the last page of the article
394
Ageing Int (2020) 45:393–410
Introduction and Motivation Over the last twenty-five years, average life expectancy in Poland has risen from 66 to 74 years for men, and from 75 to 82 years for women (GUS 2015b). At the same time, due to decreasing fertility and postponed childbearing, the share of people aged 65 and over has increased to 20% of the total population (GUS 2018). The aging of society is becoming a new demographic challenge in Poland, which is exacerbated by the fact that the baby boomer generation is now reaching retirement age. According to European Commission (EC) projections (EC 2018), this trend will continue in the future, so that by 2070, life expectancy at 65—which is the statutory retirement age in Poland— will reach 23 years for Polish males and 26 for females. Aging itself is not of concern as long as older people remain in good health. However, the risk of physical or neurodegenerative disorders, such as Parkinson’s disease (Driver et al. 2009), or dementia (Kiejna et al. 2011), including A
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