Adjusting paid jobs to informal caregiving: a qualitative study in the Netherlands

N. Hoefsmit*, Marijke Akkerman, Anja Padberg, Marjon Schiltman

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

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.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)556-563
JournalCommunity, Work and Family
Volume27
Issue number4
Early online date5 Dec 2022
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2024

Keywords

  • Informal caregivers
  • employee
  • informal care
  • job crafting
  • qualitative research

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