Dual Care in Australia: The predictors and impacts of combining informal care with other child care responsibilities

Abstract

Due to the ageing of the Australian population, increased female labour force participation, delayed childbearing and the obesity epidemic, Australia’s caring needs will likely increase significantly in the near future. Those who provide informal care and child care offer an invaluable service to Australian society in meeting those needs. Although there is significant research available regarding the provision of these types of care separately, there is a stark absence of research that addresses those who provide both types of care at the same time. This thesis examines the experiences of dual carers in Australia, who combine informal caring responsibilities with other child caring responsibilities. Dual carers will constitute an integral part of our ability to meet Australia’s increased caring needs, and we currently know very little about what characteristics make people more likely to become dual carers. We also know little about how dual caring impacts upon those providing it. This thesis addresses this lack of knowledge by examining and analysing the predictors and impacts of providing dual care. It finds that dual carers are unique from other Australians who have no caring responsibilities, and those who provide only informal care or child care separately. To identify the predictors and impacts of dual caring, this research performs quantitative, longitudinal analysis of a nationally representative data set, the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey. Cross-sectional analysis is also performed on data from the 2011 Australian Census. Event-history analysis is used to identify and analyse the predictors of dual care, and the impacts of dual care are examined through the use of multilevel modelling. This thesis finds that being female, living with a partner (particularly being a partnered women), being aged 35 to 44, not being employed full-time (especially being unemployed), not having a bachelor’s degree or higher and having a higher disposable income all significantly increase the risk of becoming a dual carer. The characteristics that increase the hazard of dual caring are unique from those which increase the hazard of informal care or child care on their own. This research also shows that the provision of dual care has unique impacts that are different to the impacts of informal care or child care. The key impacts of the provision of dual care identified by this thesis are; lowering of life satisfaction, reductions in physical and mental health and wellbeing, decreases in labour force participation and employment, and increases in relationship breakdown. The impacts of dual care are significantly different from the impacts of informal care or child care in that dual care is frequently associated with the poorest outcomes across nearly all measures analysed. This thesis makes an original contribution to knowledge by comprehensively examining dual caring in Australia, and analysing the predictors and impacts of providing dual care. Show more