TY - JOUR
T1 - Adjusting paid jobs to informal caregiving
T2 - a qualitative study in the Netherlands
AU - Hoefsmit, N.
AU - Akkerman, Marijke
AU - Padberg, Anja
AU - Schiltman, Marjon
PY - 2022/12/5
Y1 - 2022/12/5
N2 - Increasingly many individuals are expected to combine informal caregiving with paid jobs. We assume that individuals may aim for reconciliation of both by engaging in job crafting, which concerns making adjustments to tasks, relations and cognitions regarding their jobs. This research note presents a qualitative study that aims to explore the experiences of individuals who combine informal caregiving with paid work, with respect to how they craft their jobs because of caregiving. Informal caregivers (19 individuals) were interviewed. After reading the interview transcripts, a preliminary coding tree was entered into NVivo 12. Iterations of examining its fit with the data, adapting and re-examining resulted in the final coding tree. Informal caregivers reported: seeking recognition and understanding by workplace stakeholders (relational crafting), adjusting work schedules, environments and tasks on a day-to-day basis (which includes task and cognitive crafting), preventing a work overload (this covers task and relational crafting) and focusing on how paid work and informal care can reinforce each other (this includes cognitive crafting). The results suggest that individuals use job crafting to combine caregiving and work. As such, job crafting by informal caregivers needs attention of researchers to investigate its preconditions and outcomes.
AB - Increasingly many individuals are expected to combine informal caregiving with paid jobs. We assume that individuals may aim for reconciliation of both by engaging in job crafting, which concerns making adjustments to tasks, relations and cognitions regarding their jobs. This research note presents a qualitative study that aims to explore the experiences of individuals who combine informal caregiving with paid work, with respect to how they craft their jobs because of caregiving. Informal caregivers (19 individuals) were interviewed. After reading the interview transcripts, a preliminary coding tree was entered into NVivo 12. Iterations of examining its fit with the data, adapting and re-examining resulted in the final coding tree. Informal caregivers reported: seeking recognition and understanding by workplace stakeholders (relational crafting), adjusting work schedules, environments and tasks on a day-to-day basis (which includes task and cognitive crafting), preventing a work overload (this covers task and relational crafting) and focusing on how paid work and informal care can reinforce each other (this includes cognitive crafting). The results suggest that individuals use job crafting to combine caregiving and work. As such, job crafting by informal caregivers needs attention of researchers to investigate its preconditions and outcomes.
KW - Informal caregivers
KW - employee
KW - informal care
KW - job crafting
KW - qualitative research
U2 - 10.1080/13668803.2022.2152311
DO - 10.1080/13668803.2022.2152311
M3 - Article
SN - 1366-8803
JO - Community, Work and Family
JF - Community, Work and Family
ER -