Making it work: a qualitative study of the work-care reconciliation strategies adopted by family carers in Ireland to sustain their caring role

ABSTRACT

While work-care reconciliation strategies can benefit family carers, employers, wider society and the economy, juggling family caregiving responsibilities with paid employment can lead to role strain. Family carers frequently find themselves engaged in role decisions and role negotiations and being faced with decisions to alter their work commitments in order to fulfil their caregiving responsibilities. The purpose of this study was to explore family carers’ experiences of modifying work arrangements to accommodate caregiving responsibilities for an ill or dependant family member. Ten face-to-face, semi-structured interviews were conducted with family carers in Ireland, which were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim and analysed using thematic content analysis. The findings highlighted the value placed on work by family carers, but despite this, the caring role always took precedence over the employee role. Family carers adopted a combination of strategies, and where possible, carved out a carer-friendly career for themselves. The findings also revealed the key triggers for work alterations and the sacrifices made by family carers. It is important that family carers are supported by employers to successfully balance work with caregiving responsibilities and that an array of work options are available to them, so that they can make better-informed choices regarding work-care reconciliation.

KEYWORDS:

• Employment
• family carers
• caregiving
• qualitative
• strategies
• work-care reconciliation

Acknowledgements

Thanks are extended to the family carers who gave up their time to participate in this study and to colleagues and collaborators who assisted with participant requirement. The authors are grateful to the Health Research Board for funding this research as part of the Carewell project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

Due to the nature of this research, participants of this study did not agree for their data to be shared publicly, so supporting data are not available.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Health Research Board Emerging Investigator Award [grant reference: EIA-2017-039].

Notes on contributors

A. Lafferty

Attracta Lafferty is a Research Fellow in the School of Nursing, Midwifery and Health Systems at University College Dublin (UCD). Attracta holds a Bachelor’s degree in Social Psychology, a Master’s degree in Applied Psychology, and a PhD from the University of Ulster. She has also completed a Graduate diploma in Statistics from Trinity College Dublin and a Professional diploma in Leadership Development from UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School. Attracta has a substantial number of peer-reviewed publications, reports and conference publications. She has secured several large research grants which have allowed her to develop a portfolio of family carer research, with projects undertaken with family carers of older people, people with dementia, and individuals with intellectual disability. In 2017, Attracta received an Emerging Investigator Award from the Health Research Board to undertake the CAREWELL project, a four year research project, which aims to support family carers who balance work with care responsibilities.