Eldercare in Japan: Cluster Analysis of Daily Time-Use Patterns of Elder Caregivers

Abstract

Using the data of the 2006 Japanese Survey on Time Use and Leisure Activities, we perform cluster analysis and identify seven unique patterns of daily time-use patterns of co-resident family elder caregivers: (1) ‘Overworkers’, (2) ‘Full-time Workers’, (3) ‘Part-time Workers’, (4) ‘Intensive Caregivers’, (5) ‘Houseworkers’, (6) ‘Leisurely’, and (7) caregivers, who needed medical attention on the diary day (‘Emergency Diaries’). Our results show that the ‘Houseworkers’ and ‘Intensive Caregivers’ spend the most time on adult caregiving activities. Care activities for ‘Houseworkers’ are more likely to coincide with longer housework hours, increasing the total unpaid work volume. The analysis of demographic profiles suggests that similar daily patterns on weekdays and weekends do not belong to people with the same demographic characteristics. For instance, although on weekdays, ‘Leisurely Caregivers’ are mostly represented by the elderly taking care of other elderly, people of any age can belong to this category on weekends. Among all types of caregivers, only 'Intensive Caregivers' are as likely to be men as they can be women, suggesting that when the need for eldercare increases, family caregivers of any gender will step in.

Exploring daily time-use patterns: ATUS-X data extractor and online diary visualization tool

“…Both women and men who are sandwich caregivers spend similar amounts of time on adult care and travel. The observations from the visualization about adult care also reflect the findings of the existing research [ 22 , 23 ].…”

Intergenerational co-residence and young couple’s time use in China

“…However, studies on Japan have mixed conclusions (Asai, Kambayashi, and Yamaguchi 2015;Ogawa and Ermisch 1996). Japan is also considered to be a country with high levels of intergenerational co-residence, where 32% of family eldercare recipients were taken care of by their children or spouses of their children (Kolpashnikova and Kan 2020). Therefore, whether intergenerational co-residence is an ideal proxy for downward support is questionable in traditional societies.…”

Work as overload or enhancement for family caregivers of older adults: Assessment of experienced well‐being over the day

“…Despite the substantial number of working caregivers to older adults, most time diary research on work‐care balance focuses on working caregivers to young children (Hansen & Slagsvold, 2015; Kolpashnikova & Kan, 2020). Thus, how work and eldercare responsibilities (i.e., care for an older adult) are balanced is not well understood, especially over the day (Burch et al, 2019; Clancy et al, 2020).…”

“…Thus, how work and eldercare responsibilities (i.e., care for an older adult) are balanced is not well understood, especially over the day (Burch et al, 2019; Clancy et al, 2020). Recent studies have pointed to a connection between eldercare and momentary well‐being as it is experienced over the day as opposed to appraisals over a longer period of time (Freedman et al, 2019; Kolpashnikova & Kan, 2020; Lam & Garcia‐Roman, 2017). For instance, using the American Time Use Study, He and colleagues have found that caregivers have lower rates of experienced well‐being than non‐caregivers (He et al, 2018).…”

“…First, we use sequence and cluster analysis to characterize combinations of work and care over the day among working caregivers to older adults in the United States. Few studies, to our knowledge, have charted the balance of work and eldercare in this way and none that we could identify have done so for the U.S. context (for an exception from Japan, see Kolpashnikova & Kan, 2020). Sequence analysis lends itself to studying how activities–in this case, work and care versus all other activities–are ordered and timed over the 24‐h day (Lesnard & Kan, 2011).…”