Caregiving responsibilities can influence individuals’ retirement decisions and their post-retirement well-being. The effect of caregiving responsibilities on retirement decisions depends upon the relative balance between care-related time demands and financial needs due to care recipients’ illness or disability, as well as on contextual factors such as gender or care relationship.
By Maximiliane E. Szinovacz
Popular lore has it that to age successfully, retirees should stay busy (what David Ekerdt calls the “busy ethic,” in an article from The Gerontologist [26:3, 1986]), remaining engaged in active leisure such as sports or hobbies, participating in productive activities like volunteering or even continuing to work. Typically not part of this agenda are caregiving responsibilities.