The costs of being a caregiver

(Special) - As Canada's Baby Boomers age and near retirement, many are finding themselves in a position of having to care for a living parent or aged relative while at the same time providing for their own children.

A recently-released 2006 census on eldercare by Statistics Canada shows that 18.4 per cent of Canadians do some form of unpaid senior care and about one-third of boomers provide some assistance to an aging family member.

Research confirms that care giving has a financial impact on care givers.

The Research on Aging Policies and Practices (RAPP) program at the University of Alberta conservatively estimates it would cost about $6 billion to replace the care provided by the some 2.1 million Canadians who give unpaid care to seniors each year.

In other studies, boomers report that care giving impacts them financially and can have negative consequences on their careers.

Care givers often have to resort to cutting back on the number of hours they work or quitting work altogether. And they can incur out-of-pocket expenses for drugs, medical supplies and other items.

Nineteen per cent of respondents in an Ipsos Reid study on retirement trends for BMO Bank of Montreal reported that care giving had financial impact on their lives, with nine per cent saying it impacted their job and career path.

Eight per cent reported increasing their personal debt, six per cent said they have been contributing less to their RRSPs to pay for the assistance they are providing, and nine per cent said they may delay retirement because of the costs associated with care giving.

Yet less than 10 per cent of those who were assisting aging family members have sought professional advice to help them budget and plan for the assistance they are providing.

RAPP has studied the cost of care giving and has discovered some gender differences.

Although men are becoming more involved in elder care - in Statistic Canada's 2006 census 15.7 per cent of Canadian men did some form of unpaid senior care, up from 13.6 per cent a decade earlier - the financial impact on women caregivers is greater than on men.

One in seven women, for example, reduce their hours of work to accommodate their caregiving duties compared to one in 10 men. And 1 ? times more women than men caregivers reported reduced income because of their unpaid care.

"More women caregivers incur economic costs," says Janet Fast Co-Chair of RAPP. "Women caregivers are more likely than men to quit their jobs, decline a promotion, postpone educational opportunities, reduce their work hours or change their work patterns, and as a result their incomes are also reduced."

Care giving doesn't just involve financial costs. It has physical, social and emotional consequences as well.

Stress arising from the time and energy demands of care giving can cause significant health problems for the caregiver that can include sleep deprivation and changes in sleep patterns, headaches, loss of energy, gastro-intestinal disturbances and fatigue.

Care giving also can interfere with caregivers' social and recreational activities, leading to increased emotional and physical stress and decreased satisfaction with life.

The psychological impact can include depression, guilt, worry, anxiety, loneliness and general emotional stress, strain and burden.

"Women experience more health, social, emotional, employment-related and economic consequences because of their care work than men," Fast says. "Such gender differences affirm the need for a gendered lens in developing policies and program that better support men and women, family and friend caregivers and reduce their negative consequences."

Talbot Boggs is a Toronto-based business communications professional who has worked with national news organizations, magazines and corporations in the finance, retail, manufacturing and other industrial sectors. (boggsyourmoneyrogers.com)

Copyright 2007 Talbot Boggs