The Impact of Long-Term Care Insurance on Female Labor Force Participation: An Empirical Study Based on China’s Long-Term Care Insurance Pilot Program

As the aging population continues to grow, the issue of caring for disabled elderly individuals has become increasingly pressing, while reforms in China’s elderly care services have also been steadily advancing. This study draws on four survey rounds of data are drawn from four waves (2013–2020) of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) employing a difference-in-differences approach to examine how China’s pilot scheme for Long-Term Care Insurance (LTCI) affected labor force participation of female spouses and daughters in disabled households. The findings indicate that the rollout of LTCI was linked to a modest rise in daughters’ labor market involvement rate of daughters in families with disabled elderly individuals, but the effect on female spouses was more pronounced, indicating the policy’s role in alleviating the care burden on women. It also provides more development opportunities for the care industry and contributes to the improvement of women’s physical and mental health. Further robustness checks support the validity of the main conclusions, indicating that the policy effects are not spurious or accidental. Overall, this research offers fresh empirical insights into the broader social consequences of LTCI. LTCI not only serves direct medical and economic compensation functions while indirectly supporting women’s involvement in paid work through the reduction of informal caregiving duties. These results imply that policymakers need to place stronger emphasis on the gender equity outcomes of LTCI when promoting the system nationwide and coordinating with other social policies to jointly promote women’s sustained participation.