Balancing Career and Caregiving Responsibilities: Navigating the Trade offs
For the third article in this transition series, I am focusing on the balancing act between work and life outside of work. Specifically, caring for those around us, which generally falls outside of formal paid work but comes with significant responsibility and commitment, not unlike a contractual role. The policy climate surrounding informal care and routes to outsourcing care is also relevant to our wider economy. Looking after family/ home accounts for one of the largest groups of economic inactivity. In fact, one of the policy changes announced in the new UK government’s Autumn Statement 2024 was pitched at supporting unpaid carers to take on more additional paid work through increasing the Carer’s Allowance earning threshold.
Caring for those around us—be this family or friends—is often a testament to strong, close relationships. It's a significant privilege to have strong relationships and another significant privilege to invest time in nurturing them through care. However, from a logistical standpoint, caregiving introduces another form of work—usually unpaid—that demands time and energy.
Multiple responsibilities inevitably lead to trade offs. How do you decide where to allocate your time? How much choice do you truly have, and how do you determine what's best for you and those you care for?
How do caregiving responsibilities relate to transition?
Caregiving responsibilities often do more than just reshape daily routines—they can act as powerful catalysts for transition. The evolving demands of caregiving might prompt you to re-evaluate your career path, personal goals, and what success means to you. This introspection can lead to significant changes, such as shifting to a more flexible role, pursuing a new profession, or altering your work-life balance to better accommodate your responsibilities beyond your career. Caregiving responsibilities are rarely static, meaning the change and human impact of change they catalyse can be dynamic. The responsibility that comes with caring for others can initiate a transformative journey, compelling you to adapt and grow in ways you might not have anticipated.
Logistical trade offs can definitely shape transition. Sometimes, it’s the logistics that define the space in which transition can take place. Restrictive logistics can also impede transition. Here are some key variables that play into these decisions when it comes to navigating changes in caregiving responsibilities alongside career.
Identity
How much of your personal identity is tied to your work? For instance, as a doctor, I've found it challenging to step away from clinical work entirely, regardless of other demands in my life. Delivering healthcare isn't just a job for me; it's a core part of who I am and I have found that prioritising being able to keep up some clinical work helps me stay connected to my sense of self, and therefore helps me do my best across domains.
Finances
Outsourcing caregiving responsibilities often comes with a financial cost. This makes your income level significantly more impactful. A lot of unpaid work takes place in the leadership space and sometimes taking on these roles does not generate enough income to cover the cost of professional caregiving services. This financial gap can sharpen the dilemma when deciding which opportunities are actually affordable to pursue, and which need to be parked for now.
Flexibility
While flexibility in work schedules is a luxury, it can also add complexity. Constantly adjusting care arrangements and work commitments requires frequent context switching, which can reduce efficiency and create additional planning overhead. Flexibility allows for variety and opportunities across both caregiving and career domains, but it comes at a cost. Your broader context matters here. Do you have others around who can step in on short notice when plans fall through? Alternatively, maybe you need extra flexibility due to factors like frequent travel, which could make ad-hoc work arrangements more appealing, even though this comes at the cost of the benefits of secure employment like paid time off.
Lara’s take
Looking at caregiving responsibilities as an example of circumstances that can lead to transition is interesting because caregiving responsibilities are often a moving target, with the needs of those you care for changing over time. What worked last month might not be useful or even feasible now. Seeking a permanent solution, both in terms of logistics and what this means for how you distribute your own energy and other resources may be unrealistic. Having multiple options—both in your career and support systems to lean on—can be beneficial, but generating these options requires time and effort. More choices mean more decisions, which can sometimes be confusing. And it can all too easily feel you are back to the start with weighing up the different trade offs!
The sorts of changes associated with caregiving happen frequently in every network as individuals and those around them move through different life phases. What’s salient is that the career/ caregiving trade offs demonstrate clearly that transition can rarely be one-time process. More often, it’s a mix between an iterative and evolutionary process that takes place over time. Transition is also a multidimensional process that frequently involves the relationships with those we are closest to, both in cause and in impact.
