Changes in the care burden over the transition to adulthood

This study uses two characteristics of NIDS that are not found in other national datasets in South Africa to explore the gendered changes in respect of care work that occur as older teenagers enter adulthood. These characteristics are, firstly, the inclusion of a question on the main caregiver for each child under 15 years of age and the longitudinal nature of the study which allows analysis to compare the situation of an individual at two different points in their life. The study explores changes in the care burden of young women and men who are aged between 15 and 19 (inclusive) in the 2008 NIDS survey and nine years older (24-28) in the 2017 NIDS survey between these two dates. It does so by constructing a care burden index for each of these years for all individuals with records for both dates. The paper first explores separately for each time period to what extent there are gender differences in the care burden as measured by the care index, using descriptive statistics. This is followed by regression analysis to determine which factors are associated with larger increases in the care burden at the endpoint.