Caregivers as Care Recipients: Caregiving Histories and Perceptions of Future Care

This study examines how unpaid caregiving histories shape older adults’ perceptions of whether their children will be willing and available to provide future care. Existing frameworks suggest caregiving reinforces expectations of future support, but less understood is how caregiving may also heighten awareness of its burdens and how this relationship varies across heterogeneous caregiving histories. Using life history data from the Health and Retirement Study and latent class analysis, we identified distinct caregiving histories based on the timing, duration, frequency, and overlap of caregiving roles. We then estimated logistic regression models comparing caregivers with non-caregivers and comparing each caregiving history group with non-caregivers. Caregivers were more likely than non-caregivers to anticipate support from children, but this pattern was driven by those with shorter, sequential caregiving histories rather than earlier or more prolonged caregiving experiences. These findings suggest caregiving may reinforce anticipated support when limited in duration but attenuate it otherwise.