The Experiences of Workers Hired Under Consumer Direction in ...

a paid caregiver by the time of the nine-month follow-up survey (and therefore did not have aworker who could be included in this sample).Worker Characteristics. In some respects, workers who were hired directly and agencyworkers were similar (Table 1). The majority of both groups were aged 40 to 64, and over80 percent were at least 10 years younger than the consumer they cared for. Most had at least ahigh school education, although agency workers were somewhat more likely than directly hiredworkers to have graduated from high school (79 percent and 71 percent, respectively). Nearly allagency workers (97 percent) and the great majority of directly hired workers (84 percent) werefemale.Because treatment group members generally hired friends and family, there are somestriking differences between directly hired workers and agency workers. Specifically, 78 percentof directly hired workers were related to the consumer, and nearly half (49 percent) were thedaughter or daughter-in-law. About 27 percent of directly hired workers lived with the consumerat the time of the caregiver survey, and nearly all these live-in workers had lived with theconsumer before the demonstration began (not shown). Before the demonstration began,84 percent of directly hired workers had provided help with routine health care, personal care, orhousehold tasks, and 45 percent had been the consumer’s primary informal caregiver. 5Incontrast, few agency workers were related to the consumer (about 6 percent), lived with theconsumer (4 percent), or were the primary informal caregiver prior to the demonstration(5 percent). During the two weeks prior to the Caregiver survey, 40 percent of directly hired5 The consumer’s primary informal caregiver is defined as the caregiver who provided thegreatest number of hours of unpaid care to the consumer.11