Informal caregiving, time use and experienced wellbeing

Area of Science:

• Gerontology
• Sociology
• Psychology

Background:

• Informal carers often report lower evaluative wellbeing compared to non-carers.
• Existing literature and analyses of evaluative wellbeing align with this trend.
• However, this study reveals a contrasting finding regarding experienced wellbeing.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the discrepancy between evaluative and experienced wellbeing in informal carers.
• To analyze how time use and the experience of those activities contribute to wellbeing differences.
• To identify specific factors influencing experienced wellbeing among carers.

Main Methods:

• Utilized decomposition analysis to separate time use and experience factors.
• Analyzed experienced wellbeing data in 10-minute intervals over two days for 4817 UK adults.
• Employed entropy balancing and Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition for comparative analysis.

Main Results:

• Carers reported a small but higher level of experienced wellbeing than non-carers.
• The net experienced wellbeing gap was 0.066, resulting from competing time use effects.
• Adjusting for non-carer time use patterns would increase carer experienced wellbeing by 0.188, driven by sleep and reduced time stress.

Conclusions:

• Time use patterns and the subjective experience of activities are crucial determinants of wellbeing.
• Leisure and non-market activities can moderate the positive impact of other time use factors on wellbeing.
• Future initiatives for carer wellbeing should focus on optimizing how carers allocate and experience their time.