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Does Formal Employment Reduce Informal Caregiving?

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  • Daifeng He
  • Peter McHenry

Abstract

Using the Survey of Income and Program Participation, we examine the impact of formal employment on informal caregiving. We instrument for individual work hours with state unemployment rates. We find that, among women of prime caregiving ages (40–64 years), working 10% more hours per week reduces the probability of providing informal care by about 2 percentage points. The effects are stronger for more time‐intensive caregiving and if care recipients are household members. Our results imply that work‐promoting policies have the unintended consequence of reducing informal caregiving in an aging society. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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  • Daifeng He & Peter McHenry, 2016. "Does Formal Employment Reduce Informal Caregiving?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(7), pages 829-843, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:25:y:2016:i:7:p:829-843
    DOI: 10.1002/hec.3185
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    2. Julien Bergeot & Roméo Fontaine, 2020. "The heterogeneous effect of retirement on informal care behavior," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(10), pages 1101-1116, October.
    3. Mak, Henry Y., 2018. "Managing imperfect competition by pay for performance and reference pricing," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 131-146.
    4. Raab, Roman, 2017. "Retirement and Informal Care-giving: Behavioral Patterns among Older Workers," Working Papers 2017-08, Joint Research Centre, European Commission.
    5. Ludovico Carrino & Vahé Nafilyan & Mauricio Avendano, 2023. "Should I Care or Should I Work? The Impact of Work on Informal Care," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(2), pages 424-455, March.
    6. Fischer, Björn & Haan, Peter & Sanchez, Santiago Salazar, 2022. "The effect of unemployment on care provision," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 23(C).
    7. Annarita Macchioni Giaquinto & Andrew M. Jones & Nigel Rice & Francesca Zantomio, 2022. "Labor supply and informal care responses to health shocks within couples: Evidence from the UK," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(12), pages 2700-2720, December.
    8. Carrino, L.; & Nafilyan, V.; & Avendaño Pabon, M.;, 2019. "Should I Care or Should I Work? The Impact of Working in Older Age on Caregiving," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 19/23, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    9. Simard-Duplain, Gaëlle, 2022. "Heterogeneity in informal care intensity and its impact on employment," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    10. Fischer, Björn & Müller, Kai-Uwe, 2020. "Time to care? The effects of retirement on informal care provision," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    11. Russell, Helen & Grotti, Raffaele & McGinnity, Fran & Privalko, Ivan, 2019. "Caring and unpaid work in Ireland," Research Series, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), number BKMNEXT382, June.
    12. Mommaerts, Corina & Truskinovsky, Yulya, 2020. "The cyclicality of informal care," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    13. Carmichael, Fiona & Ercolani, Marco G., 2016. "Unpaid caregiving and paid work over life-courses: Different pathways, diverging outcomes," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 1-11.
    14. Zhu, Rong & Onur, Ilke, 2023. "Does retirement (really) increase informal caregiving? Quasi-experimental evidence from Australia," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).

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