Caregivers' Retirement Congruency: A Case for Caregiver Support

Abstract

Using the concept of retirement congruency (RC), which takes into account greater variation in retirement decisions (low, moderate, or high RC) than a dichotomous conceptualization (forced versus chosen), multinomial logistic regression was conducted on a sample of caregivers from the 2002 Canadian General Social Survey who were retired from employment ( n = 700). Different variables increased the risk of having low and moderate RC, when both were compared to high RC. Factors predicting low RC (versus moderate RC), were similar but not identical to those predicting low RC (versus high RC). Retiring for health reasons and job problems were significant in all three comparisons. Retiring to give care only increased the probability of having moderate RC, compared to high RC, indicating that many employed caregivers who voluntarily retired because of caregiving responsibilities still expressed a desire to have remained in the labor force. Results raise questions about which policy domain—income security or labor—is most appropriate within this context.