Do informal elder care responsibilities have an effect on job engagement? : a quantitative study

Abstract

Literature has stated that juggling informal caregiving and professional work produces general negative effects to the occupation of the caregivers (Lee, 1997). To examine whether there is indeed such relationship between informal elder care responsibilities and job engagement, participants (n = 44) were assigned into two groups (care-givers and non-care-givers), each given the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (Schaufeli, Salanova, Gonalez-Roma & Bakker, 2002b). Given that the distribution of job engagement scores was normal, the scores were compared by a one-way ANOVA analysis followed by a two-way ANOV A. Results suggest no significant difference between caregivers and non-caregivers in job engagement. Analysis and limitations of these findings will be discussed along with suggestions for future research.