Time as Resource and Experience

Caregiving costs are multidimensional and heterogeneous—they involve hidden categories that extend beyond traditional measures of lost income and time. Effective policy requires understanding of which caregivers require support and how to apply targeted interventions. In this study, we introduced three new measures of important, though under-studied, aspects of caregiver experiences: fragmentation of time, unpredictability in care demands, and quality of their time spent in other activities such as leisure or work. We developed a conceptual framework that focuses on the commonality of time challenges of all caregivers to allow application to diverse caregiving contexts and piloted a survey about caregivers' time use decisions and experiences so that future researchers can incorporate these measures in studying and estimating caregiving cost for specific caregiver groups, providing insights on how tailored support can address caregiving burden.

• Time use experiences, more than total caregiving time, influence caregiver wellbeing. Our three dimensions of time use experiences explain 45 percent of variance in perceived caregiving burden, compared to 7 percent for total caregiving hours alone. Understanding how caregiving affects daily life—not just how much time it takes—is essential to assessing the true costs of caregiving.
• An interdisciplinary approach offers a more comprehensive framework for caregiving costs than traditional economic frameworks. Economic analysis of caregiving typically focuses on lost wages and foregone work. Our framework incorporates how caregiving affects other daily activities through time use experiences. This expanded scope explores the more nuanced components of caregiving costs and enables researchers and policymakers to rethink how to estimate and address caregiving costs.
• Caregiver experiences and needs are highly heterogeneous. Only 62 percent of caregivers would accept professional support if available at no cost; those reporting more severe negative time use experiences are more likely to want support, though most would replace some caregiving, not all. Measuring time use experiences helps researchers, policymakers, and various stakeholders understand what caregivers want and need—rather than assuming universal preferences—providing insights into which caregivers experience the most burden and how to design targeted interventions.