EMPIRICAL STUDIES doi: 10.1111/j.1471-6712.2012.00998.x Are informal caregivers less happy than noncaregivers? Happiness and the intensity of caregiving in combination with paid and voluntary work Cretien van Campen PhD (Senior Researcher), Alice H. de Boer PhD (Senior Researcher) and Jurjen Iedema PhD (Statistical Methodologist) Netherlands Institute for Social Research / SCP, The Hague, The Netherlands Scand J Caring Sci; 2012 Are informal caregivers less happy than noncaregivers? Happiness and the intensity of caregiving in combina- tion with paid and voluntary work Informal caregivers are one of the pillars of home health care. In the Netherlands, the free help they provide to sick or disabled family members, acquaintances or friends exceeds the number of hours of home care provided by professionals. While the government welcomes their con- tribution, there is concern about the potential burden their work imposes on them. On the one hand, there is concern that informal caregiving could be experienced as a burden and diminish subjective well-being; on the other, helping others as a meaningful activity might increase their sub- jective well-being. Happiness ratings (as an indicator of subjective well-being) of persons whose involvement in informal caregiving, voluntary work and paid work ranged from none to full time were analysed using multivariate regression models, which also took into account levels of physical disability and socio-economic characteristics (age, sex, household composition, education level). The sample consisted of 336 informal caregivers and 1765 noncare- givers in the Dutch population. In line with the subjective well-being assumption, the results suggest that caregivers are happier than noncaregivers when they provide care for <6 hours a week; and in line with the burden assumption, the results show that providing care for more than 11 hours a week is associated with lower levels of happiness. Other results contradicted the burden assumption that combining caregiving with paid or voluntary work is associated with more time burden and less happiness. The result that combining caregiving with paid employment or volunteering is related to higher rates of happiness con- firms the subjective well-being assumption. It is concluded that these cross-sectional results open ways to longitudinal research that can inform governments in the development of policies to support informal caregivers. Keywords: informal caregiving, happiness, subjective well-being, time burden, combining work and care activities, paid and voluntary work. Submitted 26 August 2010, Accepted 17 March 2012 Introduction Informal caregivers play an important role in home health care. In the Netherlands, the free help people provide to sick or disabled family members, acquaintances or friends and the help of volunteers is 80% of the care of people delivered at home (1). The Dutch government is concerned about the perceived burden reported by informal caregiv- ers (2). Several European and American governments have launched policies aimed at easing the burden of informal caregivers, for example, the 1995 Carers Recogni- tion and Services Act in the United Kingdom and the 2007 Social Support Act in the Netherlands. The implicit policy assumption, which we call the bur- den assumption here, implies that informal caregiving imposes a burden on those providing the care and will diminish their subjective well-being. This thesis is empiri- cally supported by a range of studies in which informal caregivers describe their caregiving as a burden, which often has negative outcomes for themselves (3–5). For instance, Canadian informal caregivers caring for persons with dementia reported lower levels of subjective well- being, the more hours per week they provided care (5). This finding was confirmed by surveys of Swedish (6, 7) and Dutch informal caregivers (8). However, informal caregiving is experienced not only as a burden, but also as a meaningful and rewarding activity. Contrary to the former thesis, from a subjective well-being Correspondence to: Cretien van Campen, Netherlands Institute for Social Research / SCP, P.O. Box 16164, 2500 BD The Hague, The Netherlands. E-mail: c.van.campen@scp.nl Ó 2012 The Authors Scandinavian Journal of Caring Sciences Ó 2012 Nordic College of Caring Science 1