Care Labor for Dementia Elderly at Home Concentrated on Daughters and Daughters-in-Law

Females Outnumber Males by 5 Times
Age Groups in Order: 50s - 40s - 30s

The sex ratio of children born last year dropped to 104.7, the lowest level since statistics began. One reason for the pronounced preference for daughters was the expectation that "daughters will take better care of parents in old age than sons," according to a survey, and research supporting this has been released.

A study found that family members caring for elderly dementia patients are more often daughters than sons, and that caregivers in their 50s are the most common by age group. On the 12th, Dami Kim from Hanyang University Graduate School of Clinical Nursing presented these findings in her master's thesis last month titled "Factors Influencing Caregiving Behaviors of Primary Family Caregivers of Home-Dwelling Dementia Patients."

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The survey was conducted from August 1 to September 8 last year among 125 primary family caregivers who care for dementia patients registered at dementia relief centers in regions including Seoul and Gyeonggi.

Women accounted for 82.4% of the family members primarily caring for dementia patients, five times more than men (17.6%).

By age, those in their 50s and older were the largest group (36.8%), followed by those in their 40s (33.6%) and those 30 or younger (29.6%). The average age was 47.4 years.

The relationship to the dementia patient was most commonly daughter at 42.4%, followed by daughter-in-law (16.8%), son (15.2%), others (13.6%), and spouse (12.0%). Married individuals (76.0%) far outnumbered unmarried ones (24.0%).

Educational background was college graduate or higher (76.0%), high school graduate (16.0%), and middle school graduate or below (8.0%).

The average time spent caring for dementia patients was 9.3 hours per day.

The author advised, "To enable primary family caregivers to better care for dementia patients, it is important not to place all responsibility on the primary caregiver but for all family members to understand and consider each other."