IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/dpr/wpaper/0670.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Altruism and the Care of Elderly Parents: Evidence from Japanese Families

Author

Listed:
  • Miki Kohara
  • Fumio Ohtake

Abstract

This paper analyzes what adult children would do for their parents were they frail and in need of long-term care. Focusing on the special case of parents' illness, the paper then investigates altruism in Japanese children. Descriptive statistics show that about 30% of adult children living separately from their parents provide long-term in-home care, which suggests that a significant number of Japanese children supply care. However, detailed examination reveals that this parental care is not motivated entirely by altruism. We show that children provide parental care when their parents are wealthy enough to meet the costs of nursing.

Suggested Citation

  • Miki Kohara & Fumio Ohtake, 2006. "Altruism and the Care of Elderly Parents: Evidence from Japanese Families," ISER Discussion Paper 0670, Institute of Social and Economic Research, Osaka University.
    • Handle: RePEc:dpr:wpaper:0670
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.iser.osaka-u.ac.jp/library/dp/2006/DP0670.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hoerger, Thomas J & Picone, Gabriel A & Sloan, Frank A, 1996. "Public Subsidies, Private Provision of Care and Living Arrangements of the Elderly," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 78(3), pages 428-440, August.
    2. Cox, Donald & Rank, Mark R, 1992. "Inter-vivos Transfers and Intergenerational Exchange," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 74(2), pages 305-314, May.
    3. Bernheim, B Douglas & Shleifer, Andrei & Summers, Lawrence H, 1986. "The Strategic Bequest Motive," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 4(3), pages 151-182, July.
    4. Cox, Donald, 1987. "Motives for Private Income Transfers," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 95(3), pages 508-546, June.
    5. Chiappori, Pierre-Andre, 1992. "Collective Labor Supply and Welfare," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(3), pages 437-467, June.
    6. Robert F. Schoeni, 1997. "Private Interhousehold Transfers Of Money And Time: New Empirical Evidence," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 43(4), pages 423-448, December.
    7. Liliana E. Pezzin & Barbara Steinberg Schone, 1999. "Intergenerational Household Formation, Female Labor Supply and Informal Caregiving: A Bargaining Approach," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 34(3), pages 475-503.
    8. Ohtake, F., 1991. "Bequest Motives of Aged Households in Japan," ISER Discussion Paper 0249, Institute of Social and Economic Research, Osaka University.
    9. Hayashi, Fumio, 1995. "Is the Japanese Extended Family Altruistically Linked? A Test Based on Engel Curves," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(3), pages 661-674, June.
    10. Pezzin, Liliana E & Schone, Barbara Steinberg, 1997. "The Allocation of Resources in Intergenerational Households: Adult Children and Their Elderly Parents," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(2), pages 460-464, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. John Ameriks & Andrew Caplin & Steven Laufer & Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, 2007. "The Joy of Giving or Assisted Living? Using Strategic Surveys to Separate Bequest and Precautionary Motives," NBER Working Papers 13105, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Aoki Takaaki, 2011. "On the Implications of Two-Sided Altruism in Human Capital Based OLG Model," Asian Journal of Law and Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 2(2), pages 1-40, July.
    3. Yukawa, Shiho, 2012. "女性の賃金が親への介護行動に与える影響 [The Effect of Women's Wage on Elderly Care]," MPRA Paper 35801, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Aoki, Takaaki, 2008. "On the Implications of Two-way Altruism in Human-Capital-Based OLG Model," MPRA Paper 12492, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    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. Lisa Cameron & Deborah Cobb-Clark, 2008. "Do coresidency and financial transfers from the children reduce the need for elderly parents to works in developing countries?," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 21(4), pages 1007-1033, October.
    2. Deborah Cobb-Clark & Lisa A Cameron, 2005. "Do Coresidency with and Financial Transfers from Children Reduce the Need for Elderly Parents to Work in Developing Countries?," CEPR Discussion Papers 508, Centre for Economic Policy Research, Research School of Economics, Australian National University.
    3. Wolff, François-Charles, 2006. "Les transferts ascendants au Bangladesh, une décision familiale?," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 82(1), pages 271-316, mars-juin.
    4. Jellal, Mohamed & Wolff, Francois-Charles, 2002. "Cultural evolutionary altruism: theory and evidence," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 241-262, June.
    5. Barnet-Verzat, Christine & Wolff, Francois-Charles, 2002. "Motives for pocket money allowance and family incentives," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 339-366, June.
    6. Sergi Jiménez-Martín & Cristina Vilaplana Prieto, 2013. "Informal Care and intergenerational transfers in European Countries," Working Papers 2013-25, FEDEA.
    7. Altonji, Joseph G & Hayashi, Fumio & Kotlikoff, Laurence J, 1997. "Parental Altruism and Inter Vivos Transfers: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(6), pages 1121-1166, December.
    8. Julie Zissimopoulos, 2001. "Resource Transfers to the Elderly: Do Adult Children Substitute Financial Transfers for Time Transfers?," Working Papers 01-05, RAND Corporation.
    9. Max Groneck & Frederic Krehl, 2014. "Bequests and Informal Long-Term Care: Evidence from the HRS Exit Interviews," Working Paper Series in Economics 79, University of Cologne, Department of Economics.
    10. François-Charles Wolff & Claudine Attias-Donfut, 2007. "Les comportements de transferts intergénérationnels en Europe," Économie et Statistique, Programme National Persée, vol. 403(1), pages 117-141.
    11. Wakabayashi, Midori & Horioka, Charles Yuji, 2009. "Is the eldest son different? The residential choice of siblings in Japan," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 21(4), pages 337-348, December.
    12. Matteo Lippi Bruni & Cristina Ugolini, 2006. "Assistenza a domicilio e assistenza residenziale: politiche di intervento e analisi empirica," Rivista italiana degli economisti, Società editrice il Mulino, issue 2, pages 241-268.
    13. Charles Yuji Horioka, 2014. "Why Do People Leave Bequests? For Love or Self-Interest? Evidence from a New International Survey of Bequest Plans," UP School of Economics Discussion Papers 201406, University of the Philippines School of Economics.
    14. Francois-Charles Wolff & Seymour Spilerman & Claudine Attias-Donfut, 2005. "Do Parents Help More their Less Well-Off Children? Evidence from a Sample of Migrants to France," Microeconomics 0504001, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Elin Halvorsen & Thor O. Thoresen, 2011. "Parents' Desire to Make Equal Inter Vivos Transfers," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 57(1), pages 121-155, March.
    16. Raut, Lakshmi K. & Tran, Lien H., 2005. "Parental human capital investment and old-age transfers from children: Is it a loan contract or reciprocity for Indonesian families?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(2), pages 389-414, August.
    17. François-Charles Wolff & Mohamed Jellal, 2002. "Aides aux parents âgés et allocation intra-familiale," Revue Économique, Programme National Persée, vol. 53(4), pages 863-885.
    18. Edward Wolff & Maury Gittleman, 2014. "Inheritances and the distribution of wealth or whatever happened to the great inheritance boom?," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 12(4), pages 439-468, December.
    19. Charles Yuji Horioka, 2002. "Are the Japanese Selfish, Altruistic or Dynastic?," The Japanese Economic Review, Japanese Economic Association, vol. 53(1), pages 26-54, March.
    20. Yang-Ming Chang, 2009. "Strategic altruistic transfers and rent seeking within the family," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 22(4), pages 1081-1098, October.

    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:dpr:wpaper:0670. 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: Librarian (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/isosujp.html .

    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.