A new study by the Taub Center examines the population whose needs and impact on the labor market is almost never discussed. About 1.2 million people in Israel care for a family member with some type of disability for a period of six months or more without any financial compensation. Many of the caregivers care for more than one family member. Family members assist with a variety of daily function activities: personal hygiene, help inside and outside of the home, emotional and social support, and sometimes even financial support. In some cases, caregivers assist with medical treatments — from filling prescriptions and overseeing medication including injections or inhalations to more complex care. Due to the informal nature of the caregiving activities, it is difficult to gather data on caregivers, and not much is known about the impact caregiving has on them.
The Taub Center study, conducted by Rachel Arazi, Prof. Benjamin Bental, and Prof. Nadav Davidovitch, is based on data from the Central Bureau of Statistics Social Survey 2019, that examined the characteristics of this nearly invisible population, the type of care they give, the time they devote to caregiving, and the impact or harm they may have experienced as a result of their caregiving activities.
The researchers divided the disabilities requiring care into three major categories: physical — disabilities in mobility due to old age or physical disability; cognitive — cognitive disabilities stemming from age or emotional issues; mental — autism, intellectual disabilities, or loneliness.
About 21% of the survey respondents said that they care for a family member. In a breakdown by population groups, it was found that 21% of non-Haredi Jews, 34% of Haredim, and 17% of Arabs care for a family member. In the Arab population, the majority of care (76%) is for physical disabilities. Among Haredim, the most frequent care is for mental disabilities — 27%, versus 15% among non-Haredi Jews and 12% among Arabs. Differences among groups may stem from the more traditional nature of Haredi society, where family members in need of care often live with their caregivers, as well as differences in the incidence of dementia in the population groups. It is also possible that since mental disabilities are not related to old age, its incidence in Haredi society, which has a relatively young population distribution, is higher.
From a gender perspective, no differences were found between men and women in the likelihood of their devoting time to caring for a family member, although it was found that women give more hours than men to caregiving — 34% of women devote 10 hours or more per week to caregiving, versus 26% of men. Women also feel that caregiving is more of a burden than men — 54% versus 47% reported feeling that it was a burden.
Those aged 40–59 care for both their children and their parents
In a look at the length of time spent in caregiving, the researchers found that the majority of caregivers (79%) do not live with the family member they are caring for. The likelihood that someone aged 40–49 and 50–59 will be a caregiver is substantially higher than for someone aged 20–29. These caregivers are the “sandwich generation,” carrying twice the burden due to their obligations to their parents’ generation as well as their children. Thus, the likelihood that someone aged 50–59, the age group bearing the greatest burden, will report feeling that caregiving is more of a burden is substantially greater than for someone in any other age group.
About half of the caregivers of working-age invest 6 hours or more per week in caregiving
How many hours are given over to caregiving? The study shows that about 28% of caregivers invest up to 2 weekly hours, about 18% devote 3–5 hours, about 18% give 6–9 hours, and about 28% said that they spend 10 hours or more per week in caregiving. Some 8% of respondents said that they do not devote a fixed number of weekly hours to caregiving, or refused to answer the question. In other words, close to half of family caregivers, which represents about 10% of the working-age population, invest at least one day per week in caregiving activities for half a year or more.
The number of weekly hours invested in caregiving rises with age (until the 50–59 age group, and then the trend changes), and those with a high school education spend more hours than those with an academic education or those without a high school education. About 40% of Arabs and Haredim spend 10 hours or more per week in caregiving versus 28% of non-Haredi Jews. Although a larger portion of marrieds than non-marrieds are caregivers, 39% of the unmarried caregivers reported giving 10 hours or more per week, versus 28% of the married caregivers.
The extent of negative impact on employment and the economic significance of the data
As expected, employment status affects the number of hours devoted to caregiving. While the likelihood of an employed caregiver to devote up to 2 weekly hours to caregiving is similar to that of an unemployed caregiver, the chances of an employed caregiver being in the two medium-high categories is 6–7 percentage points higher than for the unemployed caregivers. In the highest category, the situation is reversed: about 39% of unemployed caregivers devote 10 hours or more per week to caregiving, versus 27% of employed caregivers. Nevertheless, the vast majority of caregivers — about 88% — said that their caregiving activities have had no impact on their employment. Of the remaining respondents, 5% said that they had, in fact, lost some work days, 4% reported losing work hours, 2% dropped the amount of time that they work, and 1% left their place of work due to their need to give care to a family member.
These data carry economic significance. Roughly, if 10% of Israelis of working age invest the equivalent of one work day a week to caregiving activities, or about 20% of their weekly work hours, then about 2% of work days in the economy are devoted to long-term family care. Considering that labor represents some 60% of GDP, this means a revenue loss of approximately 1.2% of GDP.
Despite the fact that the majority of respondents claimed that their work was not impacted, it can be hypothesized that the burden of care affects many aspects of caregivers’ lives including their careers, and their personal and social relations. This study can serve as the basis for continued research that will try to better understand the social and economic implications of caregiving, including comparisons between different population groups.