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Care for elderly parents: do children cooperate?

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  • Julien Bergeot

    (Ca’Foscari University of Venice)

Abstract

Do children cooperate when they decide to provide informal care to their elderly parent? This paper assesses whether a cooperative or non-cooperative model drives the caregiving decisions of children. Focusing on families with two children and one single parent, I use data from a survey of older adults in France to compare the predictive power of the two models. Results suggest that children are more likely to behave according to a non-cooperative model, and that a cooperative model overestimates the level of care received by the parents. I construct an indicator of the degree of non-cooperativeness between two children and explore the determinants of non-cooperation. Finally, I show that this indicator is positively correlated with the number of unmet needs the parent has. This latter result suggests that the current level of informal care provided to a parent appears to suffer from a public good problem and the lack of cooperativeness between children has detrimental consequences for the parent.

Suggested Citation

  • Julien Bergeot, 2024. "Care for elderly parents: do children cooperate?," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 37(1), pages 1-31, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:jopoec:v:37:y:2024:i:1:d:10.1007_s00148-024-00992-2
    DOI: 10.1007/s00148-024-00992-2
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    Cited by:

    1. Christine Ho & Kathleen McGarry, 2025. "Brothers, sisters, and support to older parents: separate spheres across and within support types?," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 38(1), pages 1-38, March.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Informal care; Cooperation; Long-term care; Structural econometrics;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J14 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of the Elderly; Economics of the Handicapped; Non-Labor Market Discrimination
    • D13 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Production and Intrahouse Allocation
    • C57 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Econometrics of Games and Auctions

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