Worker and carer – two conflicted roles of active agers

k 2018

Worker and carer – two conflicted roles of active agers

PETROVÁ KAFKOVÁ, Marcela

Basic information

Original name

Worker and carer – two conflicted roles of active agers

Authors

PETROVÁ KAFKOVÁ, Marcela (203 Czech Republic, guarantor, belonging to the institution)

Edition

Aging Workforce : Older (Eng)Aging Keynote Conference: Workers and Immigrants as New Pillars of Western Economies?, 1-2 March, Prague, 2018

Other information

Language

English

Type of outcome

Prezentace na konferencích

Field of Study

50400 5.4 Sociology

Country of publisher

Czech Republic

Confidentiality degree

není předmětem státního či obchodního tajemství

References:

URL

RIV identification code

RIV/00216224:14230/18:00100845

Organization unit

Faculty of Social Studies

Keywords in English

young old; older worker; care; grandparents; Czech Republic

Abstract

V originále

The increase of older workers´ employment rate has been one of the pivotal measures of population ageing in the European Union. Within the Europe 2020 strategy, the Czech Republic set a national partial target to have the employment rate of older workers (55-64 years old) 55 %. It is a part of the joint EU target to have 75 % of people aged 20-64 at work. The employment rate of older workers was 58.5 % in 2016 (Source: Eurostat) and is quite high in the long-term view. Although some EU documents have a broader view on the population ageing issue, their aim is overwhelmingly to extend working lives of older people. It represents a very flattened view of the active ageing concept, originally defined by the World Health Organisation in 2002. The WHO defined active ageing more broadly as participation in society, not only as its productive activities. However, the current young-old perform many other important social roles, not only their workers´ roles. Besides their roles of active leisurers trying to enjoy their free time and self-development, they are in the roles of volunteers and carers. The young-old have to care for their parents, spouses and grandchildren in many cases. Grand-parenting is a typical social role of the young-old across the whole Europe, helping parents, (especially) mothers, to reconcile work and family life. The increasing longevity causes more often situations when parents of the young-old are still alive and as the oldest-old often in need. The role of a carer for a person in need is not as frequent as a grand-parental role. In our survey only 14 % of women and 6 % of men care in this way. Almost 3/4 of them feel role overload. A half of these carers are economic active people. The carers take care very intensively, 53 % every day and 38 % more times a week. On average, carers provide their help about 30 hours per week regardless of gender. Majority of them perceive this help as quite or very demanding. They develop different strategies to cope with all these demands. These key strategies of the young-old to deal with the role overload are the main aim of this presentation. Besides that, it focuses on the importance that the young-old place on their particular roles and their combination. These issues are answered using survey and in-depth interviews with the Czech 50-70-year-old young-old. The paper is based on mixed methods. It utilised two sources of data, from the survey (N = 730) and in-depth interviews with 30 communication partners from the research project “Role overload: Grandparents in the Era of Active Ageing” (GA13-34958S). The survey analysis focuses on the module devoted to the caring role and economic role and variables indicating the risk of role overload. The in-depth interviews are analysed in the spirit of grounded theory starting with repeated reading of transcribed interviews and continuing with open and initial coding. About a half of respondents feel the role overload and what is mainly to blame is employment, which is time demanding and only rarely part-time. The caring role is often added to the previous scope of roles resulting in the feeling of stress, necessity of new temporal and spatial organisation and postponing of leisure and other family roles.

Links

GA13-34958S, research and development project

Name: Přetížená role: prarodiče v době aktivního stárnutí

Investor: Czech Science Foundation

Citovat

PETROVÁ KAFKOVÁ, Marcela. Worker and carer – two conflicted roles of active agers. In Aging Workforce : Older (Eng)Aging Keynote Conference: Workers and Immigrants as New Pillars of Western Economies?, 1-2 March, Prague. 2018.

@proceedings{1409808,
   author = {Petrová Kafková, Marcela},
   booktitle = {Aging Workforce : Older (Eng)Aging Keynote Conference: Workers and Immigrants as New Pillars of Western Economies?, 1-2 March, Prague},
   keywords = {young old; older worker; care; grandparents; Czech Republic},
   language = {eng},
   title = {Worker and carer – two conflicted roles of active agers},
   url = {https://www.czechdemography.cz/akce/ostatni-akce/aging-workforce-older-worker-and-immigrants-as-new-pillars-of-western-economies/},
   year = {2018}
}

TY  - CONF
ID  - 1409808
AU  - Petrová Kafková, Marcela
PY  - 2018
TI  - Worker and carer – two conflicted roles of active agers
KW  - young old
KW  - older worker
KW  - care
KW  - grandparents
KW  - Czech Republic
UR  - https://www.czechdemography.cz/akce/ostatni-akce/aging-workforce-older-worker-and-immigrants-as-new-pillars-of-western-economies/
N2  - The increase of older workers´ employment rate has been one of the pivotal measures of population ageing in the European Union. Within the Europe 2020 strategy, the Czech Republic set a national partial target to have the employment rate of older workers (55-64 years old) 55 %. It is a part of the joint EU target to have 75 % of people aged 20-64 at work. The employment rate of older workers was 58.5 % in 2016 (Source: Eurostat) and is quite high in the long-term view. Although some EU documents have a broader view on the population ageing issue, their aim is overwhelmingly to extend working lives of older people. It represents a very flattened view of the active ageing concept, originally defined by the World Health Organisation in 2002. The WHO defined active ageing more broadly as participation in society, not only as its productive activities. However, the current young-old perform many other important social roles, not only their workers´ roles. Besides their roles of active leisurers trying to enjoy their free time and self-development, they are in the roles of volunteers and carers. The young-old have to care for their parents, spouses and grandchildren in many cases. Grand-parenting is a typical social role of the young-old across the whole Europe, helping parents, (especially) mothers, to reconcile work and family life. The increasing longevity causes more often situations when parents of the young-old are still alive and as the oldest-old often in need. The role of a carer for a person in need is not as frequent as a grand-parental role. In our survey only 14 % of women and 6 % of men care in this way. Almost 3/4 of them feel role overload. A half of these carers are economic active people. The carers take care very intensively, 53 % every day and 38 % more times a week. On average, carers provide their help about 30 hours per week regardless of gender. Majority of them perceive this help as quite or very demanding. They develop different strategies to cope with all these demands. These key strategies of the young-old to deal with the role overload are the main aim of this presentation. Besides that, it focuses on the importance that the young-old place on their particular roles and their combination. These issues are answered using survey and in-depth interviews with the Czech 50-70-year-old young-old. The paper is based on mixed methods. It utilised two sources of data, from the survey (N = 730) and in-depth interviews with 30 communication partners from the research project “Role overload: Grandparents in the Era of Active Ageing” (GA13-34958S). The survey analysis focuses on the module devoted to the caring role and economic role and variables indicating the risk of role overload. The in-depth interviews are analysed in the spirit of grounded theory starting with repeated reading of transcribed interviews and continuing with open and initial coding. About a half of respondents feel the role overload and what is mainly to blame is employment, which is time demanding and only rarely part-time. The caring role is often added to the previous scope of roles resulting in the feeling of stress, necessity of new temporal and spatial organisation and postponing of leisure and other family roles.
ER  -

PETROVÁ KAFKOVÁ, Marcela. Worker and carer – two conflicted roles of active agers. In \textit{Aging Workforce : Older (Eng)Aging Keynote Conference: Workers and Immigrants as New Pillars of Western Economies?, 1-2 March, Prague}. 2018.

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