Altering Work Patterns to Accommodate Help to Elderly Parents: Are Baby-Boomers Juggling Work and Family in New Patterns?

Martha Hill, University of Michigan
Wei-Jun Jean Yeung, New York University

This paper explores ways baby-boom children adapt their labor market allocations to assist their elderly parents and how their patterns of adaptation compare to those of earlier cohorts. This has become an important policy concern, yet little is known about it. Three birth cohorts from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics - those born 1935-44, 1945-54, 1955-64 - are compared cross-sectionally and over a five-year period. Unique features include: (1) disaggregating work hours by type (actual hours worked; sick time, vacation time; unemployment time; time out of the labor force) (2) exploring which factors typically distinguish the cohorts (differences in women's labor market commitment; cohort size; marital instability; geographic distance between adult children and parents) best account for cohort differences in labor market responses to parental caregiving. Preliminary findings show both similarities and differences across the cohorts and hint at a narrowing of gender differences in responses to elder care.