Caregiving responsibilities for a child, spouse or parent: The impact of care recipient independence on employee well-being

•The effects of employees' informal unpaid caregiving responsibilities are explored.•Work support moderated the effect of care recipient independence on caregiver well-being.•This interaction effect is mediated by career disruption and underemployment.

An important non-work role involves the provision of informal, unpaid care to family and friends who have a disability or who are aged. In this study we explored the effects of different levels of care recipient independence on caregiver well-being. We predicted that care recipient independence would affect caregiver well-being and that this effect would be sequentially mediated by caregiver career disruption and underemployment. We also proposed that the effect of care recipient independence would be moderated by the workplace and out-of-workplace support available to the caregiver. In a survey of employees with unpaid non-work caregiving responsibilities our hypothesis concerning the mediating role of caregiver career disruption and underemployment was supported. We also found the predicted effect for the moderation hypothesis concerning care recipient independence and workplace support. Employees who cared for people with low independence experienced greater career disruption when they received limited workplace support - and this career disruption flowed through to lower caregiver well-being.