“In Good Times and in Bad, in Sickness and in Health”: A Longitudinal Analysis on Spousal Caregiving and Life Satisfaction

This study aims to fill this gap by focusing on spousal caregivers ’ life satisfaction before, during, and after episodes of caregiving. We apply a dynamic perspective which enables further understanding of the adaptation of caregivers to the changed situation over time, distinction of different subdimensions of satisfaction, and consideration of the transition o ut of caregiving that can be driven by death or recovery of the partner. Using rich panel data of the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (GSOEP), we find that transition into caregiving has a lasting negative impact on the caregivers’ life satisfaction. This decline in satisfaction seems to be main ly driven by negative impacts of caregiving on leisure time. For transitioning out of caregiving, the results depend upon the reasons for ending this task. While we find no changes in caregivers’ life or domain satisfaction after recovery of the care recipient, our results show that transitions ou t of caregiving caused by the death of the dependent partner go along with increases in well-being after a first negative shock.
Source: Journal of Happiness Studies - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research