IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0299974.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The impact of long-term care insurance on family care for older adults: The mediating role of intergenerational financial support

Author

Listed:
  • Lianjie Wang
  • Jing Liu

Abstract

Rapid population aging has been placing heavy tolls on Chinese family caregivers. Previous empirical evidence from multiple countries have shown that establishing national long-term care insurance was effective in reducing family care burdens. Utilizing data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) wave 2011 to 2018, this study examined the effects of implementing the pilot long-term care insurance program on family care received by the Chinese older adults, by using a time-varying Difference-in-Differences (DID) method. The results showed that: (1) the implementation of the pilot long-term care insurance program has led to a 17.2% decline in general for family care received by the Chinese older adults. (2) The effect of participating in the pilot program on family care received differed by respondent’s household registration, health status, marital status, and possesion of retirement pension, and were specifically pronounced among those who were urban residents, having spouse, living with disabilities, and living with no retirement pension. (3) Further results from the mechanism analyses showed that the pilot long-term care insurance program decreased the level of family care by reducing the dual intergenerational financial support between older adults and their adult children. (4) Although participating in the pilot program decreased older adult’s dependence on their adult children, their physical and mental health status were not negatively affected. This study contributes to the existing literature by evaluating the effects of implementing the pilot long-term care insurance program on family care received by the Chinese older adults, and lends supports to the previous studies that participating in long-term care insurance significantly reduces old adults’ demand for family care, but not in sacrifice of their physical and mental well-being.

Suggested Citation

  • Lianjie Wang & Jing Liu, 2024. "The impact of long-term care insurance on family care for older adults: The mediating role of intergenerational financial support," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 19(5), pages 1-22, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0299974
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0299974
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0299974
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0299974&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0299974?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pauly, Mark V, 1990. "The Rational Nonpurchase of Long-term-Care Insurance," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(1), pages 153-168, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Pierre Pestieau & Gregory Ponthière, 2012. "Long-Term Care Insurance Puzzle," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Joan Costa-Font & Christophe Courbage (ed.), Financing Long-Term Care in Europe, chapter 3, pages 41-52, Palgrave Macmillan.
    2. Charles Yuji Horioka & Emin Gahramanov & Xueli Tang, 2024. "On the Impact of Long-term Care Insurance on the Behavior of Parents and Children: Theory and Evidence on Japan," NBER Working Papers 32744, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. William J. Scanlon, 1992. "Possible Reforms for Financing Long-Term Care," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 6(3), pages 43-58, Summer.
    4. M. Martin Boyer & Philippe De Donder & Claude Denys Fluet & Marie-Louise Leroux & Pierre-Carl Michaud, 2018. "A Canadian Parlor Room-Type Approach to the Long-Term Care Insurance Puzzle," CIRANO Working Papers 2018s-13, CIRANO.
    5. Montserrat Guillén & Jean Pinquet, 2008. "Long-Term Care: Risk Description of a Spanish Portfolio and Economic Analysis of the Timing of Insurance Purchase," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan;The Geneva Association, vol. 33(4), pages 659-672, October.
    6. Christophe Courbage & Nolwenn Roudaut, 2008. "Empirical Evidence on Long-term Care Insurance Purchase in France," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan;The Geneva Association, vol. 33(4), pages 645-658, October.
    7. DE DONDER, Philippe & PESTIEAU, Pierre, 2011. "Private, social and self insurance for long-term care: A political economy analysis," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2011053, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    8. Jing Dong & Fabrice Smieliauskas & R. Tamara Konetzka, 2019. "Effects of long-term care insurance on financial well-being," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan;The Geneva Association, vol. 44(2), pages 277-302, April.
    9. Sergi Jiménez‐Martín & José M. Labeaga‐Azcona & Cristina Vilaplana‐Prieto, 2016. "Interactions between Private Health and Long‐term Care Insurance and the Effects of the Crisis: Evidence for Spain," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(S2), pages 159-179, November.
    10. Justina Klimaviciute & Pierre Pestieau & Jérôme Schoenmaeckers, 2019. "Family altruism and long-term care insurance," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan;The Geneva Association, vol. 44(2), pages 216-230, April.
    11. Giorgio Fabbri & Marie-Louise Leroux & Paolo Melindi-Ghidi & Willem Sas, 2024. "Conditioning public pensions on health: effects on capital accumulation and welfare," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 37(2), pages 1-21, June.
    12. Weiguang Liu, 2020. "Individual health perspective, income protection insurance coverage and human capital growth," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 40(1), pages 177-187.
    13. Zweifel Peter & Courbage Christophe, 2016. "Long-Term Care: Is There Crowding Out of Informal Care, Private Insurance as Well as Saving?," Asia-Pacific Journal of Risk and Insurance, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 107-132, January.
    14. Dumont, Etienne & Fortin, Bernard & Jacquemet, Nicolas & Shearer, Bruce, 2008. "Physicians' multitasking and incentives: Empirical evidence from a natural experiment," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(6), pages 1436-1450, December.
    15. Pierre Pestieau & Motohiro Sato, 2008. "Long‐Term Care: the State, the Market and the Family," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 75(299), pages 435-454, August.
    16. Christophe Courbage & Guillem Montoliu-Montes & Joël Wagner, 2020. "The effect of long-term care public benefits and insurance on informal care from outside the household: empirical evidence from Italy and Spain," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 21(8), pages 1131-1147, November.
    17. Rinaldo Brau & Matteo Lippi Bruni, 2006. "Insuring Health Risk for Elderly People: A Note Based on Stated Preferences Evidence," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 142(V), pages 77-84.
    18. Daniel Barczyk & Sean Fahle & Matthias Kredler, 2023. "Save, Spend, or Give? A Model of Housing, Family Insurance, and Savings in Old Age," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 90(5), pages 2116-2187.
    19. Pestieau, Pierre & Ponthiere, Gregory, 2016. "The public economics of long term care," CEPR Discussion Papers 11365, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    20. Canta, Chiara & Cremer, Helmuth, 2019. "Long-term care policy with nonlinear strategic bequests," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 548-566.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0299974. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.