Family care, employment and health of women: An international comparative view

The multidimensional pressure of simultaneous family care responsibilities, employment outcomes and health dynamics enact multiple effects on individuals, especially on women. In fact, women in Europe are traditionally the major suppliers of family care. This results in a lower presence of women in the labour market (employment) compared to men, as these latter bear lower family burdens. The unequal share of family care responsibilities between men and women also influences health perceptions and outcomes. We wonder if this is more a cause rather than an effect for women having multiple roles (housework, childcare, care of non autonomous family members, like elderly and disabled people). In this contribution, we investigate the role of family responsibilities in shaping employment and health outcomes, in an international comparative view, by considering a wide time period. We use cross-sectional data from the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) survey for (many) European Countries. Our empirical strategy allows us assessing the effect of family care responsibilities on both employment probability and health outcomes. The models are estimated separately by gender on the time span from 2005 to 2020. This enables us to ascertain the possible effects of the Great Recession and subsequent austerity measures, and the current COVID-19 pandemic on the role of family care responsibilities on employment and health by gender. Our results suggest a disadvantage for women, since most family responsibilities, i.e. care of children, elderly and/or disabled household members, are mainly negatively associated with their employment and health outcomes.