That is the query {that a} latest NBER working paper by Nicole Maestas, Matt Messel, and Yulya Truskinovsky (2023) goal to reply. The authors use information from the Survey of Earnings and Program Participation (SIPP) amongst particular person report offering unpaid care to household and good friend. The SIPP information are then linked to earnings information from Social Safety Administration. People who present caregiving are matched with comparable people primarily based on demographics in addition to earnings/employment histories. Utilizing this method the authors discover the next outcomes by gender:

Earlier than girls begin offering care, there isn’t any distinction of their employment or earnings trajectories and people of non-caregivers or future caregivers. Nevertheless, within the three years after girls start offering care, the employment of caregivers falls by 2.7 share factors (4 p.c) relative to the employment of future caregivers, or by 2.1 share factors relative to non-caregivers. The employment hole between caregivers and comparability teams narrows three to 5 years after care begins. The typical annual earnings of feminine caregivers fall by practically $1,000 (4 p.c) within the first three years after caregiving begins, relative to the earnings of future caregivers, and stays about $600 decrease in years three to 5, though the longer-term distinction will not be statistically important.

For males, the image is sort of completely different. The employment and earnings of male caregivers start to say no 5 or extra years earlier than males start to supply unpaid care, relative to the trajectories of male non-caregivers and future caregivers. After they start offering care, male caregivers expertise an additional employment decline of three.7 share factors (5 p.c) relative to the management group of future caregivers. Male caregivers keep out of the labor pressure longer than do feminine caregivers, because the employment hole between male caregivers and their management teams persists in years three to 5 moderately than narrows as seen for feminine caregivers.

You possibly can learn the NBER digest abstract right here and the complete paper right here.