Work, Caring for Elders Requires Balance
June 26, 2007 — -- Sheree Anderson of Sioux Falls, S.D., calls her mother, Virginia Harvey, her best friend. She considers it a labor of love to care for her in her home now that her mom is 87 and prefers not to live on her own.
But for Anderson, the need to balance her work demands with her role as a caregiver poses a persistent challenge. When she goes on business trips, she has her sister drive several hours to stay with Virginia. She also structures her work hours around the need to run errands for her mother or take her to the doctor.
"From time to time, it causes stress," says Anderson, 51, a self-employed educational and military consultant. "It's hard to have to always be there to cook the meals and give her medicine. I'm tied to a routine, and I try to work in-between."
For both employees and the self-employed, shouldering the burden of caring for an elderly parent while also meeting job demands can be a Herculean task. The nation includes an estimated 34 million unpaid caregivers for adults, typically older relatives, according to a study released this week by AARP. Nearly 60 percent of male caregivers work full time, as do 41 percent of female caregivers, according to the National Alliance for Caregiving and AARP.
But as the ranks of employed caregivers swell, a small but growing number of employers are beginning to establish novel programs to provide help and scheduling flexibility. Twenty-six percent of companies offer an elder care referral service, which helps employees connect with service providers or other services, according to a 2006 survey by the Society for Human Resource Management of small, midsize and large companies. Five percent provide emergency elder care help (such as contracting with a firm that has nurses or other providers who can help care for an elderly relative), and 3 percent subsidize the cost of elder care.
Programs for federal employees vary by agency, but some provide telecommuting, caregiver fairs and lunch-and-learn events on elder caregiving issues.
