Effets du temps partiel sur la conciliation des temps sociaux des aidants

Informal caregivers in employment have considerable difficulty reconciling their social times because of their multiple responsibilities (family, parental, domestic, professional and caregiver), and may then reduce their work to part-time. To cast light on the potential effects of part-time work on the reconciliation of social times, we compare the situation of informal caregivers in full-time and in part-time employment, using the propensity score matching method. This makes it possible to control for the heterogeneity of observable variables taking into account the determinants of recourse to part-time work. Part-time employment may be a deliberate choice and thus reflect specific caregiving preferences and behaviours. Accordingly, we also control for unobservable variables relating to the propensity to be a caregiver. The results show that, other things being equal, a shift to part-time work contributes to increasing time devoted to caregiving more than proportionately to the reduction in time worked; the increased caregiving time contributes to explain the greater probability of caregivers in part-time employment reporting a reduction in social relations and caregiving-related psychological problems.