Department of Sociology, University of Oxford, UK.
Department of Sociology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.
J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci. 2020 Jan 1;75(1):173-183. doi: 10.1093/geronb/gby087.
Many studies reveal a gender gap in spousal care during late life. However, this gap could be an artifact of methodological limitations (small and unrepresentative cross-sectional samples). Using a data set that overcomes these limitations, we re-examine the question of gender differences in spousal care and housework adjustment when a serious illness occurs.
We use biannual waves between 2001 and 2015 of the German Socio-Economic Panel Study and growth curve analyses. We follow couples longitudinally (identified in the household questionnaire) to analyze shifts in spousal care hours and housework plus errand hours that occur as a response to the spousal care need. We test for interactions with levels of care need and with gender.
We found that men increase their care hours as much as women do, resulting in similar care hours. They also increase their housework and errand hours more than women do. Yet at lower levels of spousal care need, women still do more housework and errands because they spent more time doing housework before the illness.
Even in a context of children's decreasing availability to care for parents, male spouses assume the required caregiving role in systems relying on a mixture of public and private care.
许多研究揭示了在晚年配偶护理方面存在性别差距。然而，这种差距可能是由于方法学限制（样本小且无代表性）造成的。本研究使用克服了这些限制的数据，重新考察了当发生严重疾病时，配偶护理和家务调整方面的性别差异问题。
我们使用了德国社会经济面板研究在 2001 年至 2015 年间的两年期数据，并进行了增长曲线分析。我们对夫妻进行纵向追踪（在家庭问卷中确定），以分析在配偶护理需求的响应中发生的配偶护理时间和家务加差事时间的变化。我们检验了与护理需求水平和性别之间的交互作用。
我们发现，男性增加的护理时间与女性一样多，导致护理时间相似。他们还比女性增加了更多的家务和差事时间。然而，在配偶护理需求较低的情况下，女性仍然做更多的家务和差事，因为她们在患病前已经花了更多的时间做家务。
即使在子女照顾父母的可用性减少的情况下，在依赖公私混合护理的系统中，男性配偶仍承担着所需的护理角色。
