When Caregiving Becomes Burden: The Gap Between Preferred Amount of Care Time and Actual Amount of Care Time

This study examines the amount of excessive care work perceived among primary family caregivers of young children and aged family members in Korea and explores factors associated with the amount of their excessive care work. By using the 2018 Care Work and the Economy Project survey data collected from 1001 Korean primary family caregivers, this study estimates the amount of excessive care time of primary caregivers by calculating the difference in the actual and stated preferred amount of time for caregiving of children or aged family members and examines its determinants. Findings show primary child caregivers perform 20 h of excessive care per week while primary aged person caregivers perform 26.24 h of excessive care per week on average. Even if some excessive caregiving is redistributed from primary caregivers to their spouses, there remains an average of 14.36 h per week for childcare and 23.32 h per week for aged person care of excessive care time experienced by primary caregivers at the household level. Results of the generalized maximized entropy analyses show that for childcare, mothers who use longer hours of paid childcare service report a smaller amount of excessive care work. For aged person care, families with lower income, who live with the aged person, or with longer periods of caregiving report a larger amount of excessive care work at the household level. This study also highlights the role of attitudes towards gender roles, i.e., perceived fairness of care work within the household and the importance of government support for customized quality care services.