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Positive side to juggling between work and care? A mixed-method investigation on work-family enrichment among Hong Kong working caregivers for adults with long-term care needs = 工作與照顧的融和：香港照顧者工作與家庭的協同效應的混合方法研究
Principal Investigator
Department
Grant Awarding Body
Research Grants Council
Grant Type
Faculty Development Scheme
Project Code
UGC/FDS15/H02/24
Amount Awarded
HK$895,466
Funding Year
2024-2025
Duration of the Project
24 months
Status
Ongoing
Abstract
Family and work are two important sources of satisfaction and meaning in adult life. Succeeding in both roles is often stressful but could also be significantly gratifying. With the aging population and the rise in the prevalence of decapacitating chronic illnesses, the global population of working caregivers is increasing. For instance, in the United Kingdom, the ratio of workers who need to juggle between work and informal care for an adult rose from one in nine in 2011 to one in seven in 2019. In Hong Kong, the population of informal caregivers for older adults and adults with disabilities reached 1.12 million in 2021, with about one-sixth to one-third of them working in a full-time job. Role theorists have long postulated that people engage in multiple roles for benefits such as self-esteem, knowledge, perspectives, and tangible resources. These resources may be transferred from one role to benefit the quality of life in another role, as captured by the concept known as work–family enrichment (WFE). While the literature has garnered sufficient understanding on how conflicts arise from juggling between work and care, researchers do not have an equivalent level of understanding on how engaging in one role may benefit the performance of another. Moreover, providing care to a needy adult is qualitatively different from childcare due to the greater complexity of duties arising from disabilities and multi-morbidities, higher vigilance required for acute incidences (e.g., hospitalization and falls), and an often-downward trajectory that ends with the death of the care recipient. Unfortunately, unlike working parents, empirical studies for working caregivers for a needy adult remain scarce. Considering these two gaps in the literature, this study will explore WFE, in contrast to work–family conflict (WFC), among Hong Kong working caregivers for adults with long-term care needs. This project will adopt an explanatory sequential mixed-method design to investigate four research objectives. Study 1 will be a two-wave longitudinal quantitative survey with 575 local Chinese working caregivers of an older adult or an adult with disability and/or chronic illness. Considering the heterogeneity of the population, latent profile analysis will be used to derive a typology for local Chinese working caregivers (Research Objective 1). Then, the levels of WFE and WFC will be compared across different caregiver profiles (Research Objective 2). Structural equations modelling will be used to model the associations among WFE and WFC with work, family, and well-being outcomes (Research Objective 3) and quality of care (Research Objective 4). In Study 2, a sub-sample of the caregivers with different latent profiles will be invited for an in-depth interview with their care recipients to derive a nuanced, contextualized understanding of WFE and WFC. While the findings of Study 1 will be used for enriching the interview guide of Study 2, the findings of Study 2 will also enrich the quantitative knowledge regarding the levels and strengths of associations among the key constructs from Study 1. The findings of the two studies will be connected to provide a comprehensive overview of the understudied phenomenon of WFE. Sustaining workforce participation despite the growing demand for informal care amid the aging population has become a policy priority for metropolises such as Hong Kong. By elaborating on the positive sides of the work–family dynamics, employers, care professionals, and policymakers will be equipped with the knowledge for developing and enforcing suitable family-friendly organizational policies as well as work-friendly long-term care services.