GENDER AND RELATIONSHIP DIFFERENCES IN CAREGIVING PATTERNS AND CONSEQUENCES AMONG EMPLOYED CAREGIVERS

Gender and relationship differences in caregiving (i.e., for a spouse, parent, parent-in-law, other relative, or friend) are investigated am ong a sample of employed caregivers (N = 2,174). No gender differences were found in the provision of 7 of 13 caregiving tasks, but women de voted more time and were more likely to be primary caregivers. After c ontrolling for other key variables, relationship added modestly to the ability to predict all five measures of caregiving consequences, and gender further added nominally to the ability to predict three of the measures. The findings lend support to the gender-role socialization h ypothesis (Miller & Cafasso, 1992) and suggest the targeting of servic es to caregivers of spouses and parents, especially female caregivers.