Once we hit 65, the average life span for Canadian women is 89 and 87 for men. We’re gaining extra time in our golden years and choosing to spend as much of it as possible in our own homes. That can have serious implications for our families, says Dr. Lun Li, whose research focuses on family caregiving's mental and physical impacts.

Meeting our aging loved ones’ need for emotional care, companionship, health care support and help with household tasks and appointments can mean less time for our own family, self-care or social activities, says the School of Social Work assistant professor. And the fall-out of those demands is something we should all care about. 

“At some point, everyone in our society will receive care, be a caregiver or both,” he says. “Whether as family members, social workers, nurses, doctors, professional caregivers and even businesspeople, every one of us is invested in senior care.” 

Is being a caregiver bad for your health?

A line of thinking called the Healthy Caregiver Effect, explains Dr. Li, suggests taking care of others can be good for us – that the activities that come with caring for our older relatives (taking them to doctor’s appointments or helping with cleaning) can keep us more physically active and have positive effects.

Using data from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging, Dr. Li and his co-authors recently published a paper illustrating that while the idea has merit, it’s not always true – especially when the intensity of caregiving duties is so high that it keeps people from maintaining their social connections. 

“When family caregivers experience social isolation, their health can decrease significantly over time,” explains Dr. Li. “Those experiences with isolation may indicate that they don’t have enough support from other family members or access to formal community-based or health-care services.”

What about GenX? 

As Baby Boomers age, their GenX children are becoming caregivers – and juggling responsibilities. With co-authors from Simon Fraser University, Dr. Li looked at social isolation and the demands of multiple roles among adults in their 40s and 50s during the three years after assuming caregiving responsibilities. 

They found that spousal caregivers receive the least amount of social support and are most likely to have to reduce their social participation. Caregivers who provide support to siblings or parents seem stable when it comes to social engagement. And while initially, non-kin caregivers supporting their friends or co-workers have stable social support levels, their social participation drops significantly over time. 

That makes sense, says Dr. Li, because the nature of the relationship has changed. “Before you start supporting your best friend with grocery shopping or banking, for example, you would have said that the time you spent together was for pleasure. But if your friend relies on you to support them in doing their grocery shopping, the time you spend together becomes a responsibility, and you might not enjoy the experience the way you did before.” 

Shift the lens to older adults who transition into the caregiver role and the results for non-kin caregivers are similar – they experience a decline in social participation. But older spousal caregivers don’t fare as well as their younger counterparts: Dr. Li’s most recently published study in the Journal of Gerontology shows that after transitioning into the caregiving role, older adults providing spousal care report the greatest decline in social participation and social support. 

Does choice matter?

For some people, taking on a caregiver role isn’t a choice. A family caregiver might be the only adult sibling living in the same city as their aging parents. Or tradition or cultural expectations could mean that a female relative automatically becomes the caregiver.

Dr. Li’s research published in the Canadian Journal on Aging shows that the lack of choice can affect a caregiver’s mental health. Family caregivers who chose to take on the role reported significantly higher levels of life satisfaction and fewer psychological symptoms when compared to those without choice. And family caregivers were more likely to report fewer psychological symptoms than spousal caregivers (who also had the lowest percentage of people who felt they chose their caregiving role). 

How can we care for the caregivers?

He explains that when publicly-funded programming and at-home support for older adults are lacking, the workload automatically shifts to spouses and family members. That creates even more potential for social isolation and adverse health outcomes, resulting in additional costs and pressure on our health-care system. 

“As researchers and social workers, we must advocate for more support for family caregivers,” says Dr. Li. 

Preparing social work students to engage with older adults will also become increasingly important. Collaborating with a research colleague at the University of Calgary, Dr. Li is working on a three-year project to assess the impact of gerontology education on social work students. 

“As our population continues to age into the future, working with older adults will not be a choice for social workers,” he says. “Mental health, housing and child and family services will automatically involve working with older adults. That is the trend and why it is important to emphasize gerontological education in social work education.”