OBJECTIVES:

Informal unpaid caring, such as by parents to children, can influence the psychological well-being to caregivers by crowding out the paid work commitments and leisure activities, especially when such caring is highly intensive and time consuming. This research explores the effect of informal unpaid caring on mental health of care-providers.

METHODS:

A pooled cross section is set with 5158 observations from Scottish Health Survey (2012-2018). Anxiety and depression are employed to measure mental health, with self-reported statuses and durations of symptoms. Unpaid care provision, and its weekly and annual frequency are used as independent variables in the Ordinary Least Squares model. The subgroup analysis focuses on females and low-income individuals.

RESULTS:

Informal unpaid care-providers are more likely to feel anxious (13.9%, p=0.000), and to have severe (15.6%, p=0.058) and lasting (52.6%, p=0.062) symptoms. Particularly, when this caring takes over 35 hours per week, carers confront the 87.3% higher possibility to have a long-term anxiety (p=0.076). On the other hand, informal unpaid caring has a limited effect on depression. Caring up to one year increases depression among caregivers (30.2%, p=0.059), whereas over-20-year caring adds the severity of depression (70.7%, p=0.053). In the subgroups, female carers are majorly affected by anxiety, while low-income carers risk both anxiety and depression.

CONCLUSIONS:

Anxiety, including its severity and duration, is positively linked with informal unpaid caregivers, whilst depression tends to show up in the short-run or beginning of this caring. Such outcomes can be a result of the negative sides, e.g. social isolation, reduced work income, etc., of devoting in-kind care. Additionally, female carers are more likely to experience anxiety, indicating a need of a supportive environment for them. The result also shows that informal unpaid care challenges low-income carers by exposing them to anxiety and depression, implying the importance of supporting this group.