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Blood and Gender Bias in Informal Care within the Family?

Author

Listed:
  • Canta, Chiara
  • Pestieau, Pierre

    (Université catholique de Louvain, LIDAM/CORE, Belgium)

  • Schoenmaeckers, Jérôme

Abstract

This paper deals with the question of the relative contribution of children to the informal long- term care of their dependent parents. Starting from a theoretical model and using SHARE data, the paper focuses on the role of gender and blood relationships as well as the effect of differential opportunity costs within the couple. The results tend to confirm the existence of gender and blood biases in the level of informal care provided, whereas the probability of providing any care is only affected by the blood bias. If children are working, their time devoted to informal care decreases with their wage. There is no difference in the level of care provided by single children and married children. Finally, when only couples are considered, gender and blood biases are confirmed but the wage ratio has no impact on the relative level of informal care of the spouses. These results have two main policy implications: tagging public LTC transfers on the gender of children, and the adjustment of public LTC transfers to different levels of insurance coverage.

Suggested Citation

  • Canta, Chiara & Pestieau, Pierre & Schoenmaeckers, Jérôme, 2021. "Blood and Gender Bias in Informal Care within the Family?," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2021015, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    • Handle: RePEc:cor:louvco:2021015
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Norton, E.C., 2016. "Health and Long-Term Care," Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, in: Piggott, John & Woodland, Alan (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 951-989, Elsevier.
    2. Hanaoka, Chie & Norton, Edward C., 2008. "Informal and formal care for elderly persons: How adult children's characteristics affect the use of formal care in Japan," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 67(6), pages 1002-1008, September.
    3. Alfonso Sousa-Poza & Hans Schmid & Rolf Widmer, 2001. "The allocation and value of time assigned to housework and child-care: An analysis for Switzerland," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 14(4), pages 599-618.
    4. Carmichael, Fiona & Charles, Susan, 2003. "The opportunity costs of informal care: does gender matter?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(5), pages 781-803, September.
    5. Fuino, Michel & Wagner, Joël, 2020. "Duration of long-term care: Socio-economic factors, type of care interactions and evolution," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 151-168.
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    Cited by:

    1. Xavier Flawinne & Mathieu Lefebvre & Sergio Perelman & Pierre Pestieau & Jérôme Schoenmaeckers, 2023. "Nursing homes and mortality in Europe: Uncertain causality," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(1), pages 134-154, January.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Informal long-term care ; couple decision-making ; altruism;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D1 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior
    • D6 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics
    • H21 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Efficiency; Optimal Taxation
    • H31 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Household

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