Introduction
Most caring responsibilities fall to women, many of whom provide care to sick and dependent relatives while also in paid employment. Some European countries have introduced policies that promote the sharing of caring responsibilities between men and women, better work–life balance, and gender equality. Since March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted the way we live and work. In some ways, it has helped progress some of these policy goals, but in others, it may have hindered their progression. This article considers some of the work, policy and gender implications of the COVID-19 pandemic for working carers across the European Union (EU).
Caring, employment and EU policy responses
Approximately 80 per cent of all care in the EU is provided by unpaid carers, three quarters of whom are women, who spend, on average, 22 hours per week on care and domestic work; in contrast, men spend nine hours per week (EC, 2020a). The majority of carers participate in paid employment (Eurofound, 2017). With appropriate support, employment can offer them many benefits, including financial stability, social support, employee assistance programmes and respite from caring responsibilities (Hansen and Slagsvold, 2014; Joseph and Joseph, 2019). However, providing care to family members is a time- and energy-consuming commitment, making the demands of work and care difficult to reconcile (Spann et al, 2020). Managing multiple roles may also increase pressure on carers and negatively impact their physical and psychological health (Wang et al, 2011; Gaugler et al, 2018). Caring can also lead to employment-related costs, such as missed career opportunities, absenteeism and reduced productivity (Clancy et al, 2019; Fuller and Raman, 2019). Common responses to the demands of caring include reducing hours of paid work or exiting employment (Principi et al, 2014; Moussa, 2019), both of which have long-term consequences for carers’ financial security and well-being due to lost earnings or reduced pension contributions (Lilly, 2011). In the EU, caring is negatively associated with women’s employment, especially in Southern Europe, though less so in Nordic countries (Kotsadam, 2011), with women more likely than men to experience a pension gap in later life. Recent figures for EU member states suggest that, on average, women’s pensions are 30.1 per cent lower than men’s (EC, 2020a).
Supporting carers to remain in employment safeguards the employability of an ageing workforce and the sustainability of care provision at a time of demographic change (Hoff et al, 2014). Across EU countries, a variety of paid and unpaid reconciliation policies are available to working carers, including long-term leave, short-term leave and emergency leave (Yeandle, 2017). Germany and the Netherlands, for example, provide employees with ten days of compensated leave a year to fulfil caring responsibilities. In Nordic countries, the responsibility of care lies with the public sector, and family carers who take extended leave from work can be employed by municipalities to provide care (Eurofound, 2015). In most other EU countries, however, long-term care leave is unpaid and associated with considerable loss of income (Eurocarers, 2020a). In Ireland, uptake of carer’s leave remains low, perhaps suggesting a lack of awareness of this option or that current legislative provisions do not meet the needs of working carers (Oireachtas Library and Research Service, 2019).
The European Commission (EC) plays an important role in setting minimum legislative standards to ensure that employment is sustainable and equitable for all EU citizens. Women in the EU still earn less than men (Landmesser et al, 2020), but statistics for 2019 showed a slight improvement in the overall gender pay gap, from 14.4 per cent in 2018 to 14.1 per cent (Eurostat, 2021). In March 2020, the EC published its Gender Equality Strategy 2020–2025, which set out actions to close the gender pay gap, including a binding pay transparency measure and a public campaign to challenge stereotypes about women’s role in society (EC, 2020a). The European Pillar of Social Rights (EC, 2019) outlined 20 principles that aim to deliver inclusive labour markets and welfare systems across Europe. Principle 9 pertains to work–life balance and outlines a need to ensure that carers, as well as parents, have access to leave entitlements and care services, and that care responsibilities are shared between men and women (EC, 2019).
Another EU response was EU Directive 2019/118 on Work–Life Balance for Parents and Carers (European Parliament, 2019). Adopted into law on 1 August 2019, the directive aims to promote the ‘principle of equality between men and women’ (EC, 2017: 2), reduce the gender employment gap, and encourage a gender-balanced use of family-related leave and the sharing of caring responsibilities between men and women. EU member states have until August 2022 to transpose these standards into national law, which, in addition to establishing rights for parents, ensure a minimum legal standard of: (1) five carer leave days per year for people with caring responsibilities; and (2) the right to request flexible working arrangements, such as remote working, flexible work schedules or reduced working hours.
While countries such as The Netherlands, Germany, New Zealand, Australia and the UK already have legislative provisions for employees seeking flexible work arrangements (Colombo et al, 2011), there is some flexibility regarding how EU countries transpose the standards into law. For example, the directive leaves it to member states to decide if people who care for siblings, friends, neighbours or others are included (European Parliament, 2019: Article 3), or if carer leave days are compensated – a measure that would promote its gender-balanced uptake and prevent further financial hardship, particularly for women (Eurocarers, 2019).
Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on working carers
In early 2020, the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic led to the widespread implementation of flexible work arrangements, considerably changing how, when and where many Europeans work. Remote working gave employers an unprecedented view of employees’ home lives, and employers had to become somewhat considerate of their employees’ availability, access to broadband, information technology capability, altered work environment, parenting and home-schooling responsibilities, and other care commitments. The additional care responsibilities placed on families during the pandemic are likely to have increased the number of people balancing caring with paid employment (Carers UK, 2020a). Research is beginning to emerge highlighting the pandemic’s impact on the lives of working carers. Carers UK found that 11 per cent of 1,374 carers surveyed in September 2020 who had been in employment prior to the pandemic had reduced their working hours, and that 9 per cent had given up work to provide care (Carers UK, 2020b). An Irish study of family carers’ experiences of balancing work and care during the pandemic highlighted the impact of the sudden loss of support provided by schools, day centres and community services. It also found evidence that friends, neighbours and other family members became unavailable due to public health measures and social restrictions, and that work schedules and care routines became increasingly blurred and intertwined (Lafferty et al, 2021). Family carers had to navigate new ways of working, such as remote working or flexible hours, while also providing care. Without the usual levels of support, this resulted in considerable stress and anxiety (Lafferty et al, 2021).
Notwithstanding these challenges, aspects of the pandemic may also have brought opportunities for carers. Despite the absence in many EU member states of a legal right to flexible working, carers have had the chance to ‘road-test’ a range of flexible working arrangements. Attributable to the pandemic, the flexibility of remote working for some has resulted in greater autonomy and increased time with family, which may have alleviated some strains associated with reconciling work with care (Lafferty et al, 2021). The pandemic may have also prompted the more frequent use of other forms of flexibility, such as part-time or reduced work hours, adjusted work hours, temporary job shares, and compressed hours (CIPD, 2020).
Discussion
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought many challenges but also many opportunities. It has shone a spotlight on the essential work undertaken by women, and on the demands placed on carers, including those who balance caring responsibilities with paid employment. It is important to consider the work, policy and gender implications of the pandemic and the lessons learnt.
Work implications
During the pandemic, flexible working arrangements were introduced for many employees. While the EU Directive on Work–Life Balance for Parents and Carers provides a legislative basis for carers to have a right to request flexible working, remote working, albeit in a crisis, has been broadly accepted as a viable option for a large proportion of the European workforce. Working remotely is one form of flexible working; it has been suggested that carers would benefit from multidimensional flexibility, or flexible work arrangements that are as varied as possible (Matheson et al, 2020; 2021). A range of different work contexts need to be considered, including self-employment, precarious employment and work in the gig economy. These may be especially attractive to carers, as they offer inherent flexibility and autonomy (Halvorsen and Morrow-Howell, 2017). Carers in these forms of work faced a unique set of challenges during the pandemic (Apouey et al, 2020). Further consideration may be needed to ensure that gender equality and work–life balance policies are as inclusive as possible for all working carers.
Research is emerging which suggests that the pandemic has led to a perceived increase in managers’ empathy and compassion regarding their employees’ home circumstances (Burnford, 2020). Employers who grappled with their own work and family demands during the pandemic may have greater understanding and compassion towards working carers who, post-pandemic, still need to manage work and caring. Dialogue about caring commitments and preferred working patterns may have taken place for the first time, giving employers the opportunity to listen to and learn from what has helped or hindered carers to integrate new ways of working. New empathy, and enhanced awareness, among employers and policymakers may help ensure that carers are recognised and better supported when new work–life balance provisions are implemented.
Policy implications
All future policy responses will need to reflect on the ‘new normal’ post-pandemic. While EU Directive 2019/118 proposes short-term leave in the form of a minimum of five carer leave days and potential for increased flexibility, a wider range of supports and policy responses may be required. As the pandemic has shown, caring can be extremely complex and demanding; support needs vary over time and depend on the care-recipient’s health trajectory (Colombo et al, 2011; Phillips et al, 2020). Policies and leave entitlements to enable carers to combine work and caring responsibilities thus need further consideration. The financial burden associated with caring and the need for compensated leave from work should also be reflected upon. Eurocarers (2020b) has called on all EU governments to provide carers with leave entitlements that meet their ‘actual needs’ in terms of duration, eligibility, flexibility and compensation.
While the provisions of the EU directive are an important step towards enhancing working carers’ work–life balance (Lafferty et al, 2020), employers nonetheless play a critical role in transforming policy into practice (Yeandle et al, 2003). Research has shown that employers and line managers may have poor awareness and understanding of national policy, even when enshrined in legislation (Cooper and Baird, 2015). This knowledge gap can be a significant barrier for employees who wish to negotiate flexible work arrangements and highlights the need for appropriate education and training to ensure that new policies are effectively operationalised post-pandemic.
Employment policy is just one component in enabling carers’ work–life balance. Equitable and supportive employment practices and carer-friendly organisational cultures are crucial, but governments also need to address the availability of formal care services and public services. Just as childcare is considered an essential service that enables parents to participate in employment, ‘replacement care’ and access to appropriate respite or community services are needed to ensure that carers can remain in employment in a sustainable way (Pickard et al, 2018). This is particularly relevant post-pandemic, as many services that previously enabled work–care reconciliation remain suspended or have been withdrawn (Carers UK, 2020c). To ensure that support is integrated and holistic, stakeholders such as carers, carers’ advocacy groups, employers, trade unions and academics should be involved in the design, development, implementation and evaluation of work–life balance policies.
Gender implications
Early in the pandemic, evidence began to emerge which suggested that governments’ responses to slow the spread of the virus would disproportionately affect women (European Parliament, 2020). As the majority of carers are women, with many also having childcare responsibilities, increased care demands and traditional and cultural expectations about care, may have negatively impacted their ability to remain in employment. Newspaper and media reports provided ample evidence of an unequal division of family caring during the pandemic, with childcare, home schooling and housework falling predominantly on women, even in dual-earner households where male partners were also working from home (Ferguson, 2020; O’Connor, 2021). Caution is needed in relation to future workplace advances. While progress has been made on flexible working, which can promote gender equality by enabling women to remain in the workforce, there is a risk that gender stereotypes and inequalities associated with combining caring and employment could inadvertently be reinforced (Porte et al, 2020).
Women are more vulnerable to economic disadvantage as a consequence of changes associated with the pandemic; the issue of compensated care-related leave is perhaps now more important than ever before. These further inequalities are likely to have long-term consequences for gender equality, women’s economic security and workforce participation (Cook and Grimshaw, 2020). The European Council (2020: 5) has stated that the pandemic presents ‘an opportune moment to enhance the status of care work, whether paid or unpaid, which currently is mainly performed by women’. The EC (2020b: 1) has acknowledged that ‘a gender-sensitive recovery [from the pandemic] must address the gender pay gap by promoting equal share of care responsibilities, breaking the glass ceiling, and better valorising women’s skills, efforts and responsibilities’. European member states now need to consider ‘compensating’ carer leave days, as suggested in EU Directive 2019/118, to promote a gender-balanced uptake of this. Compensation could be offered on a par with parental leave and sick leave, or based on income or tax contributions. This would be a tangible way of addressing the care imbalance between men and women, and could help redistribute caring responsibilities more equitably. Given that the original aim of the directive was to reduce the gender employment gap, governments across the EU should now take the impact of the pandemic over the past year into account and consider if its minimum provisions are still likely to achieve this.
Conclusion
The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the home and working lives of many people, including working carers, and exacerbated prior structural gender inequalities. However, while it has brought many challenges, it has brought some opportunities too. If implemented correctly, policies such as those set out in EU Directive 2019/118 will provide new vital legal protection, beyond the pandemic, for carers who want flexible work arrangements. EU member states have an opportunity to build on the directive’s standards by entitling their citizens to provisions exceeding minimum requirements, implementing work–life policy interventions that capitalise on recent advances in workplace flexibility and addressing gender disparities in caring. Member states may choose to recognise the diverse, dynamic and unpredictable nature of caring by offering a package of paid and unpaid leave options. The pandemic has transformed the meaning of work–life balance, and the work, policy and gender implications of the pandemic should be considered when implementing policies intended to support carers to reconcile work and care.
Funding
This article was prepared by members the CAREWELL team. The CAREWELL project (see: https://carewellproject.com/) is funded by the Health Research Board Ireland (EIA-2017–039). It should be noted, however, that the opinions in this article are those of the authors and do not represent those of the funders.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.
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