By Kelly Greene - The Wall Street Journal
A steep rise in people caring for elderly parents is taking a toll on the health and finances of many baby boomers a new study says.
Older caregivers who work and provide care to a parent at the same time are more likely than other workers in their age group to report poor health with problems including depression and chronic disease. There is evidence they experience considerable health issues as a result of their focus on caring for others the report says.
The percentage of adult children taking care of their parents has tripled since 1994 with nearly 10 million people who are 50 and older doing so in 2008 according to a new analysis of the U.S. Health and Retirement Study a bank of economic and health data on people over age 50 that was collected by the University of Michigan. The sample contained 1112 people age 50-plus with at least one living parent.
The financial toll on care providers who are 50 or older averages $303880 per person in lost wages pensions and Social Security benefits over their lifetime due to leaving the work force early to care for a parent according to the study. For women the cost is higher: $324044 with $142693 in lost wages $131351 in lost Social Security benefits and $50000 in lost pension benefits or matching contributions to defined-benefit plans.
The study points out the importance of considering what caregiving does to your financial security says Sandra Timmermann director of MetLife Mature Market Institute a research unit of MetLife Inc. that conducted the study with the National Alliance for Caregiving and New York Medical Colleges Center for Long-Term-Care Research and Policy. These were all people over 50 and these are their highest-earning years. They dont have a lot of time to catch up.
Another study released last year by MetLife and the alliance found that depression hypertension diabetes and pulmonary disease were among caregivers more-common health problems. They also experienced higher rates of stress were more likely to smoke or drink alcoholic beverages and were less likely to get preventive health screenings including mammograms.
Susie Butler 54 is an only child helping her 83-year-old mother a widow who suffers from dementia. You start taking years off your life if youre taking care of someone with dementia. Theres a lot of stress says Ms. Butler who works full time as the head of Medicares caregiver program.
She has had to take time off of work to move her mother three times as her condition has worsened ultimately to an assisted-living facility near Ms. Butlers home in Annapolis Md. In January she had to talk the facility into letting her mother stay after she removed her tracking bracelet and tried to board a bus with a visiting Boy Scout troop. I never know at work when Im going to get the call that shes going to make a break for it Ms. Butler says.
And with monthly rent of $5500 and occasional nursing care at $150 a day the daughter says were eating through her savings very quickly.
The new study calls for employers to do a better job of accommodating caregivers so they dont quit and steering them to stress-management and free caregiving resources. It also points out that caregivers would benefit from paid family leave and says more states are beginning to show interest in doing so by tapping workers compensation funds.
People are living longer and with chronic disease. Somebodys got to take care of them and its us says Gail Hunt chief executive of the National Alliance for Caregiving.
Kelly Greene at kelly.greene@wsj.com
