Younghyun Choi
Research Mentor: Kira Birditt
Mentor Department: Institute for Social Research, Other
Author(s): Not Available
Session: Session 7 (4:00 PM – 4:50 PM)
Presentation Type: Poster 51
Abstract
Unpaid or family caregivers often have multiple social roles or commitments outside their caregiving role. Managing multiple roles simultaneously can be stressful and impact the caregiving experience. Drawing on role strain theory and stress proliferation models, this research aims to investigate whether multiple social roles (employment, marital status, and parenting) outside of caregiving contribute to caregiver burden and experience. This study identified 2,200 unpaid caregivers aged 18 or older from the Understanding America Study (UAS) dataset. Pearson correlation revealed that a greater number of social roles was associated with small positive associations with caregiving tasks and burden, and with smaller positive associations with care experience. When analyzed by gender (male and female), the number of social roles showed a stronger positive association with care tasks among females and with caregiving burden among males. Additionally, caregiving experience was negatively associated with caregiver burden for both genders. These findings highlight the importance of considering the caregiver’s broader social context rather than focusing solely on the caregiver role when examining caregiver well-being.
