Traditional Gender Roles Don't Keep Men from Becoming Caregivers

Older husbands may devote just as much effort to caring for a sick spouse as their wives might do if the situation were reversed, according to a study published in Journals of Gerontology: Series B . Researchers followed 538 older couples from 2001 to 2015 to look for connections between declining health in one spouse and shifts in the amount of time devoted to caregiving or household duties for the other, reports Reuters . When a spouse became ill, men increased the amount of time they spent on caregiving each week by roughly the same amount as women did, resulting in similar care hours regardless of which spouse was sick. For men, the increase was much greater when their wives were seriously ill than when they needed less care. However, 30 percent of male caregivers had outside help, compared with 18 percent of female caregivers.