About one-in-four Americans (23%) say there has been a time
when they took leave from work to care for a family member with a serious
health condition. An additional one-in-four say that if this hasn’t happened to
them already, it’s at least somewhat likely that it will in the future.
The current debate over paid leave often focuses on maternity
and paternity leave. Yet among adults who were employed in the past two years,
more took time off from work to care for a sick family member (11%) than did so
following the birth or adoption of a child (7%), according to a new Pew
Research Center study.
Roughly two-thirds of all adults (67%) say workers should
receive paid leave when they need to take time off to care for a sick family
member, and most (60%) of those who took family leave in the past two years say
they did receive at least partial pay while they were out of work.
But the vast majority of those who received at least partial
pay (86%) say some of that pay came from vacation, sick leave or personal time
off. Relatively few of these workers (15%) say they received pay from a family
and medical leave benefit provided by their employer.
Workers who took maternity or paternity leave with at least
some pay in the past two years are significantly more likely to report that
they were paid, at least in part, through an employer-provided family or
medical leave policy (28%).
Family-leave takers are generally more satisfied with the amount
of time they took off from work than parental-leave takers – half of those who
took leave from work to care for a sick family member say they took about as
much time off as they needed or wanted to, compared with 36% of those who took
maternity or paternity leave.
Even so, four-in-ten family-leave takers say they took less
time off than they needed or wanted to. And among those who say they took too
little time off, family-leave takers are much more likely than parental-leave
takers to say they came back to work sooner than they needed or wanted to
because they were worried about job security.
For example, 62% of family-leave takers who came back to work
earlier than they would have liked say they thought they might risk losing
their job if they took more time off. Only 37% of maternity- and
paternity-leave takers say the same.
In addition, among those who returned to work sooner than they
wanted to, family-leave takers were more likely than those who took parental
leave to say they worried about the impact their time away was having on their
co-workers.
About half of family-leave takers who took less leave than
they would have liked (46%) say they felt badly about their co-workers taking
on additional work in their absence, compared with 31% those returning from
maternity or paternity leave.
There are some intriguing gender dynamics underlying family
caregiving patterns. A narrow majority of all Americans (54%) say that when a
family member has a serious health condition, caregiving responsibilities fall
equally on men and women, but nearly as many (45%) say these responsibilities
fall mainly on women. Most women (59%) say that family caregiving
responsibilities fall mainly on women, while only 29% of men agree with this
assessment. A majority of men (69%) say family caregiving responsibilities fall
equally on men and women.
However, women and men who were employed in the past two years
are equally likely to say that they have taken time off to care for a sick
family member during that time, but women report having taken slightly more
time off, on average, than men.
And women are much more likely than men to say that they were
the primary caregiver for their sick family member. Roughly two-thirds (65%) of
female family-leave takers say they provided more care for their sick family
member than anyone else in the family. Only 44% of male family-leave takers say
they were the main caregiver.
For women who have taken family leave in the past two years, a
plurality (38%) say they were caring for a sick parent. Fewer say they were
caring for a spouse or partner (25%) or caring for a child younger than 18
(20%).
Men who took family leave in the past two years are just as
likely to say they were caring for a spouse or partner (33%) as they are to say
they were caring for a parent (34%). Some 13% of men say they took time off
from work to care for a sick child.
Among all workers who have taken time off from work in the
past two years to care for a sick family member, about six-in-ten say the
experience did not have much of an impact on their career.
For those who do think
it made a difference, men are more than twice as likely as women to say the
impact on their career was positive (26% vs. 10%). Men are also more likely
than women to say their family benefitted from their taking time off from work:
79% of men, compared with 67% of women, say taking time away from work to care
for a sick family member had a positive impact on their family.