IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/yor/hectdg/08-23.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Labour and income effects of caregiving across Europe: an evaluation using matching techniques

Author

Listed:
  • David Casado-Marín
  • Pilar García-Gómez
  • Ángel López-Nicolás

Abstract

This paper offers evidence on the effects of caregiving (i.e. looking after a dependent person within or outside the household) on labour outcomes such as employment, full time employment (conditional on employment), and income for women aged between 30 and 60 across different European countries. It does so by exploiting data from the European Community Household Panel (1994-2001) in order to match women who have become caregivers with “control” women who are deemed to be comparable in all relevant characteristics and compute a non-parametric measure of the effect of becoming a caregiver on the outcomes mentioned above. Our results suggest that, for women who are working before becoming a caregiver there is no statistically significant change in the chances of being employed. However, in the case of women who were not working prior to becoming a caregiver, there is a statistically significant decrease in the chances of entering employment. We also detect a negative and significant effect on labour income, which tends to be offset by a parallel increase in social transfers, except in the case of women with low levels of education in the Southern countries.

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:yor:hectdg:08/23
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.york.ac.uk/media/economics/documents/herc/wp/08_23.pdf
    File Function: Main text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pilar García Gómez & Angel López Nicolás, 2006. "Health shocks, employment and income in the Spanish labour market," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 15(9), pages 997-1009, September.
    2. Michael Lechner & Rosalia Vazquez-Alvarez, 2003. "The Effect of Disability on Labour Market Outcomes in Germany: Evidence from Matching," University of St. Gallen Department of Economics working paper series 2003 2003-20, Department of Economics, University of St. Gallen.
    3. Richard Blundell & Monica Costa Dias, 2009. "Alternative Approaches to Evaluation in Empirical Microeconomics," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 44(3).
    4. Alberto Abadie & Guido W. Imbens, 2002. "Simple and Bias-Corrected Matching Estimators for Average Treatment Effects," NBER Technical Working Papers 0283, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Heitmueller, Axel & Michaud, Pierre-Carl, 2006. "Informal Care and Employment in England: Evidence from the British Household Panel Survey," IZA Discussion Papers 2010, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Esping-Andersen, Gosta, 1999. "Social Foundations of Postindustrial Economies," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198742005.
    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. 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.
    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. Alberto Abadie & David Drukker & Jane Leber Herr & Guido W. Imbens, 2004. "Implementing matching estimators for average treatment effects in Stata," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 4(3), pages 290-311, September.
    12. Richard Blundell & Monica Costa Dias & Costas Meghir & John Van Reenen, 2004. "Evaluating the Employment Impact of a Mandatory Job Search Program," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 2(4), pages 569-606, June.
    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. James J. Heckman & Hidehiko Ichimura & Petra Todd, 1998. "Matching As An Econometric Evaluation Estimator," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 65(2), pages 261-294.
    15. Susan L. Ettner, 1996. "The Opportunity Costs of Elder Care," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 31(1), pages 189-205.
    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. Kaschowitz, Judith, 2015. "Der Einfluss der Pflegeverantwortung von Frauen auf das Arbeitsangebot ihrer Partner: Eine Untersuchung mit dem SOEP," Duisburger Beiträge zur soziologischen Forschung 2015-01, University of Duisburg-Essen, Institute of Sociology.
    2. Judith Kaschowitz, 2015. "Der Einfluss der Pflegeverantwortung von Frauen auf das Arbeitsangebot ihrer Partner: eine Untersuchung mit dem SOEP," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 780, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    3. repec:rdg:wpaper:em-dp2011-03 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Marina Della Giusta & Nigar Hashimzade & Sarah Jewell, 2011. "Why Care? Social Norms, Relative Income and the Supply of Unpaid Care," Economics Discussion Papers em-dp2011-03, Department of Economics, University of Reading.
    5. 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.

    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. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. Pilar García Gómez & Angel López Nicolás, 2006. "Health shocks, employment and income in the Spanish labour market," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 15(9), pages 997-1009, September.
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. 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.
    7. 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.
    8. 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.
    9. Stephen Drinkwater, 2015. "Informal Caring and Labour Market Outcomes Within England and Wales," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(2), pages 273-286, February.
    10. Yoko Niimi, 2018. "Does providing informal elderly care hasten retirement? Evidence from Japan," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(3), pages 1039-1062, August.
    11. 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.
    12. Ulrike Schneider & Birgit Trukeschitz & Richard Mühlmann & Ivo Ponocny, 2013. "“Do I Stay Or Do I Go?”—Job Change And Labor Market Exit Intentions Of Employees Providing Informal Care To Older Adults," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(10), pages 1230-1249, October.
    13. Van Houtven, Courtney Harold & Coe, Norma B. & Skira, Meghan M., 2013. "The effect of informal care on work and wages," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 240-252.
    14. Hassink, Wolter H.J. & Van den Berg, Bernard, 2011. "Time-bound opportunity costs of informal care: Consequences for access to professional care, caregiver support, and labour supply estimates," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 73(10), pages 1508-1516.
    15. Schmitz, Hendrik & Westphal, Matthias, 2017. "Informal care and long-term labor market outcomes," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 1-18.
    16. 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).
    17. Agnese Romiti & Maria Cristina Rossi, 2011. "Should we Retire Earlier in order to Look After our Parents? The Role of immigrants," CeRP Working Papers 124, Center for Research on Pensions and Welfare Policies, Turin (Italy).
    18. 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.
    19. Annika Meng, 2013. "Informal home care and labor-force participation of household members," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 44(2), pages 959-979, April.
    20. 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.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    informal care; female labour force participation; ECHP; matching; ageing;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J2 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor

    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:yor:hectdg:08/23. 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: Jane Rawlings (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deyoruk.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.