Bringing out the Best is a study undertaken about the success and challenges faced by mature aged female carers aged 45 and over in NSW in combining care and work.

The study was produced for the Office of Industrial Relations, NSW Department of Commerce by THINK: Insight & Advice Pty Ltd.

Randall Pearce, director of THINK wrote in his introduction the study: “The women who participated in this study were caring and nurturing. While they came from myriad backgrounds, they were all committed to their caring responsibilities despite significant personal hardships.

“Several had the compound challenge of caring for not one, but two family members: an aged mother and father; two bickering aunts; a disabled husband and a son with Asperger’s Syndrome. Some had cared for parents now deceased and then assumed responsibility for another family member. All faced their unique personal challenges with discipline and kindness.

“They conveyed the idea that caring ‘brings out the best’ in a person. Accordingly, the report was called ‘Bringing out the Best’.

“Listening to the stories of these women has been both confronting and rewarding. Hopefully, the findings of this study can help more women across the state combine their caring responsibilities with paid employment.”

In the Executive Summary, the report authors pointed out that over the next 20 years, our economic wellbeing will depend upon keeping older workers employed. An impending labour shortfall will need to be met by retaining mature age workers, including those with caring responsibilities.

The study was based on four focus group discussions. Two focus groups were held in Sydney (one for working carers and the other for non-working carers), and these were replicated in Lismore so that the views of carers living in both the city and country could be heard.

Women participants were chosen primarily because they constitute around 70 per cent of primary carers in NSW.  All participants were primary carers providing 20 hours or more care per week.

The study noted that if the ageing issue is not addressed the pool of labour necessary for the most productive use of resources will not be harnessed, and this will negatively impact on the productivity of the nation and individual businesses.

Key Findings

Combining care with work is determined by both need and choice. Although most participants took on caring responsibilities willingly, they made many personal sacrifices to do so. As one woman said, ‘I know it is a choice but it’s still hard.’

While the motivation for carers to work was strong, it often came into conflict with powerful emotional and cultural factors. Many participants felt they were the ones best able to care for their relatives and that, in a crisis, caring would take precedence over work.

Most agreed that it was ‘an end of an era’ of children looking after elderly parents. Several conceded that their children ‘weren’t brought up like us’ to care for their aging parents. They rarely expected to be cared for by family members in their own old age. Nevertheless, participants were aware that young people were often deeply influenced by cultural attitudes to caring for older people.

All believed their caring experience gave them special attributes that should appeal to employers: pride in their caring role and their work, maturity, reliability, loyalty, resilience, resourcefulness, perseverance, a sense of responsibility, organisational and communication skills, empathy, compassion, tact, and the ability to communicate with diverse community members.

However, most felt that employers did not recognise these qualities and that they had poor employment prospects because of low education levels and perceptions of outdated skills.

Those who worked were mostly employed in low paid sectors of the labour market and felt stiff competition for jobs from younger, better educated people. Those who had not recently worked because of caring responsibilities felt particularly disadvantaged in terms of gaining work, but many expressed a desire to re-enter the workforce at some stage post-care.

Education and training were seen as the key to securing and retaining jobs, and participants felt that training for mature age people needed to be delivered with caring responsibilities in mind. Some thought their own caring responsibilities made them well suited for work in caring roles, for example in aged care facilities.

Most felt it would be very difficult to work full-time and care for loved ones, but a few managed to do so. While most thought permanent part-time work with predictable hours would best accommodate workers with caring responsibilities, they felt that a lack of marketable skills relegated them to casual work.

A feeling of resignation about the lack of entitlements attendant upon casual work was evident. Participants seemed well aware that they had little bargaining power to ensure fairness in their working conditions, and consequently most flexible working arrangements were not seen to be available to them.

Job-sharing was seen as difficult for small and medium-sized enterprises. Working from home was seen to be suited to those at the top and bottom tiers of the employment ladder such as professionals working away from their offices and telemarketers working at their kitchen tables.

Other flexible arrangements like gradual retirement, pay averaging, flexible and unpaid leave, and the use of sick leave as carer’s leave were seen to be mainly available to permanent employees of large organisations.

A couple of participants believed paid leave for elder care should be made available to older workers. Given the common use of mobile phones, participants felt that access to a telephone at work was not necessary. At any rate, telephone access was seen to assist only when the care load was light and there were other family members nearby to respond. For the types of jobs at which participants worked, taking a relative cared for to work was not seen as feasible.

Although largely resigned to casual work, mostly with little flexibility, participants nevertheless felt that employers, supervisors and co-workers needed to more fully appreciate the importance of flexible working arrangements for mature aged workers with caring responsibilities.

Participants said they would reward employment flexibility with loyalty to their employers, that work ‘felt different’ when their personal situation was acknowledged and when they were respected and valued as a person and as a worker. Most thought greater emphasis should be placed on promoting their worth as potential employees among the organisations likely to hire them – small and medium-sized businesses.

Their educational disadvantages, their isolation, and the challenging circumstances in which they provide care signify that these women most urgently require support in combining care and work, and that they would benefit from workplace initiatives which recognise and accommodate their caring needs.

According to participants with significant job-seeking experience, a solutions-oriented approach needed to be taken by carers to find a suitable job. Each carer’s situation was seen as unique and requiring flexibility from both carer and employer. Based on these discussions, six considerations in combining caring and work emerged from their combined years of experience.

1. Be practical about balancing work and care

Participants felt that ‘something would have to go’ unless they could find a job with flexibilities that suited their particular circumstances. There were personal issues to consider: whether the quality of care they provided would suffer if they took a job that did not meet their needs; relationships with other family members; and the effect on their own health and well being.

     2.  Carers wanting work need to seek out opportunities that fit within their own needs

An active approach to finding work was encouraged, through:

• assessing the hours available for work each week and when those hours could be worked;

• assessing other requirements a carer might have, such as the need to leave earlier or start later on certain days, or other needs as specified;

• looking for organisations that needed workers at those times and which could accommodate other needs of carers;

• approaching employers directly without necessarily waiting for jobs to be advertised.

     3.  Some felt it best to be honest and upfront with prospective employers

Some participants said that it was important to be honest and upfront with prospective employers about their caring situation at home and the consequential work flexibilities required, rather than to take a job that was unsustainable in the long term.

     4.  Others wanted to get a job first and discuss flexibilities afterwards

Several told how they secured continued employment by ‘getting a foot in the door’. Some initially accepted unsatisfactory job conditions and subsequently obtained more flexible working arrangements.

    5.  Carers wanting work should present a solution that makes an employer want to hire them

Several participants noted, ‘Nobody wants to hire a problem’. They felt the need to ‘sell’ their unique personal attributes and to show how this meant that their needs could be accommodated at work to the advantage of the employer.

    6.  A prospective employer needs to be fair

While all participants were proud of their work and prepared to work hard, they felt that, in return, an employer should try to meet their needs for work flexibilities. However, many felt they had little bargaining power to ensure appropriate flexibilities.