IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/gunwpe/0353.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Effects of informal eldercare on female labor supply in different European welfare states

Author

Listed:
  • Kotsadam, Andreas

    (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University)

Abstract

Using advanced panel data methods on ECHP (European Community Household Panel) data, female labor force participation at both the intensive and extensive margin is found to be negatively associated with informal caregiving to elderly. The effects of informal caregiving seem to be more negative in the Southern European countries, less negative in the Nordic countries, and in between these extremes in the Central European countries included in the study. That is, not only do women in some countries provide more care, the care they provide also has a stronger negative correlation with the probability of being employed and the number of hours worked. It is argued in this paper that a candidate explanation for the phenomenon of lower marginal effects in countries with more formal care and less pronounced gendered care norms has to do with the degree of coercion in the caring decision.

Suggested Citation

  • Kotsadam, Andreas, 2009. "Effects of informal eldercare on female labor supply in different European welfare states," Working Papers in Economics 353, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
  • Handle: RePEc:hhs:gunwpe:0353
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/2077/19798
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. K. Bolin & B. Lindgren & P. Lundborg, 2008. "Informal and formal care among single‐living elderly in Europe," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 17(3), pages 393-409, March.
    2. Fevang, Elisabeth & Kverndokk, Snorre & Røed, Knut, 2008. "Informal Care and Labor Supply," IZA Discussion Papers 3717, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Annamaria Simonazzi, 2009. "Care regimes and national employment models," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 33(2), pages 211-232, March.
    4. Fiona Carmichael & Claire Hulme & Sally Sheppard & Gemma Connell, 2008. "Work - life imbalance: Informal care and paid employment in the UK," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(2), pages 3-35.
    5. Esping-Andersen, Gosta, 1999. "Social Foundations of Postindustrial Economies," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198742005.
    6. Bonsang, Eric, 2009. "Does informal care from children to their elderly parents substitute for formal care in Europe?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 143-154, January.
    7. Carmichael, Fiona & Charles, Sue, 1998. "The labour market costs of community care1," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(6), pages 747-765, December.
    8. Laura Crespo, 2006. "Caring for Parents and Employment Status of European Mid-Life Women," Working Papers wp2006_0615, CEMFI.
    9. Agneta Stark, 2005. "Warm Hands In Cold Age — On The Need Of A New World Order Of Care," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(2), pages 7-36.
    10. Heitmueller, Axel, 2007. "The chicken or the egg?: Endogeneity in labour market participation of informal carers in England," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 536-559, May.
    11. Spieß, Christa Katharina & Schneider, A. Ulrike, 2003. "Interactions between care-giving and paid work hours among European midlife women, 1994 to 1996," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 23(01), pages 41-68.
    12. Grossman, Michael, 1972. "On the Concept of Health Capital and the Demand for Health," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 80(2), pages 223-255, March-Apr.
    13. Carmichael, Fiona & Charles, Susan, 2003. "The opportunity costs of informal care: does gender matter?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(5), pages 781-803, September.
    14. Heitmueller, Axel & Inglis, Kirsty, 2004. "Carefree? Participation and Pay Differentials for Informal Carers in Britain," IZA Discussion Papers 1273, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    15. Jill Rubery & Mark Smith & Dominique Anxo & Lennart Flood, 2001. "The Future European Labor Supply: The Critical Role of the Family," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 7(3), pages 33-69.
    16. Anxo, Dominique & Flood, Lennart & Mencarini, Letizia & Pailhé, Ariane & Solaz, Anne & Tanturri, Maria Letizia, 2007. "Time Allocation between Work and Family over the Life-Cycle: A Comparative Gender Analysis of Italy, France, Sweden and the United States," IZA Discussion Papers 3193, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Susan L. Ettner, 1996. "The Opportunity Costs of Elder Care," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 31(1), pages 189-205.
    18. Walter Korpi, 2000. "Faces of Inequality: Gender, Class and Patterns of Inequalities in Different Types of Welfare States," LIS Working papers 224, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    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. Andreas Kotsadam, 2012. "The employment costs of caregiving in Norway," International Journal of Health Economics and Management, Springer, vol. 12(4), pages 269-283, December.
    2. Nguyen, Ha Trong & Connelly, Luke Brian, 2014. "The effect of unpaid caregiving intensity on labour force participation: Results from a multinomial endogenous treatment model," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 115-122.
    3. Cristina Vilaplana Prieto & Sergi Jiménez-Martín, 2015. "Unmet needs in formal care: kindling the spark for caregiving behavior," International Journal of Health Economics and Management, Springer, vol. 15(2), pages 153-184, June.
    4. Lilly, Meredith B. & Laporte, Audrey & Coyte, Peter C., 2010. "Do they care too much to work? The influence of caregiving intensity on the labour force participation of unpaid caregivers in Canada," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(6), pages 895-903, December.
    5. Mozhaeva, Irina, 2021. "Informal caregiving and work: A high price to pay. The case of Baltic States," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 19(C).
    6. Heger, Dörte & Korfhage, Thorben, 2017. "Does the negative effect of caregiving on work persist over time?," Ruhr Economic Papers 703, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    7. Johannes Geyer & Thorben Korfhage, 2015. "Long‐term Care Insurance and Carers' Labor Supply – A Structural Model," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(9), pages 1178-1191, September.
    8. David Casado-Marín & Pilar García-Gómez & Ángel López-Nicolás, 2011. "Informal care and labour force participation among middle-aged women in Spain," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 2(1), pages 1-29, March.
    9. Norton, E.C., 2016. "Health and Long-Term Care," Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, in: Piggott, John & Woodland, Alan (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 951-989, Elsevier.
    10. David Casado-Marín & Pilar García-Gómez & Ángel López-Nicolás, 2008. "Labour and income effects of caregiving across Europe: an evaluation using matching techniques," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 08/23, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    11. Bauer, Jan Michael & Sousa-Poza, Alfonso, 2015. "Impacts of Informal Caregiving on Caregiver Employment, Health, and Family," IZA Discussion Papers 8851, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. Meghan M. Skira, 2015. "Dynamic Wage And Employment Effects Of Elder Parent Care," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 56(1), pages 63-93, February.
    13. Miriam Marcén & José Molina, 2012. "Informal caring-time and caregiver satisfaction," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 13(6), pages 683-705, December.
    14. Urwin, Sean & Lau, Yiu-Shing & Grande, Gunn & Sutton, Matthew, 2023. "Informal caregiving and the allocation of time: implications for opportunity costs and measurement," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 334(C).
    15. Annika Meng, 2013. "Informal home care and labor-force participation of household members," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 44(2), pages 959-979, April.
    16. Elisabeth Fevang & Snorre Kverndokk & Knut Røed, 2012. "Labor supply in the terminal stages of lone parents’ lives," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 25(4), pages 1399-1422, October.
    17. Tha�s Garc�a Pereiro, 2018. "Helping while working? Women as providers of child and adult care in Italy," RIEDS - Rivista Italiana di Economia, Demografia e Statistica - The Italian Journal of Economic, Demographic and Statistical Studies, SIEDS Societa' Italiana di Economia Demografia e Statistica, vol. 72(4), pages 53-64, October-D.
    18. Loken, Katrine Vellesen & Lundberg, Shelly & Riise, Julie, 2014. "Lifting the Burden: State Care of the Elderly and Labor Supply of Adult Children," IZA Discussion Papers 8267, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    19. Bolin, K. & Lindgren, B. & Lundborg, P., 2008. "Your next of kin or your own career?: Caring and working among the 50+ of Europe," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 718-738, May.
    20. Huamin Chai & Rui Fu & Peter C. Coyte, 2021. "Unpaid Caregiving and Labor Force Participation among Chinese Middle-Aged Adults," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(2), pages 1-25, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Informal care; Female labor supply; European welfare states;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I11 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Analysis of Health Care Markets
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:hhs:gunwpe:0353. 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: Ann-Christin Räätäri Nyström (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/naiguse.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.