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Does Providing Informal Elderly Care Hasten Retirement? Evidence from Japan

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  • Niimi, Yoko

Abstract

This paper examines the implications of providing care to elderly parents for adult children’s retirement plans using micro data from a Japanese survey. We find no significant effect of caregiving on family caregivers’ planned retirement age if we do not take into account caregiving intensity but find a negative and significant effect onretirement plans for intensive caregivers, particularly among women. These findings suggest that relying on family members to provide elderly care can pose a serious challenge to the ongoing efforts of the government to promote the labor supply of women and the elderly to address the shrinkage of the working-age population in Japan. The estimation results suggest that ensuring access to formal care services can help family members reconcile their paid work with caregiving requirements, thereby alleviating the adverse effect of caregiving on their retirement plans. The results also suggest that the financial burden of formal care services could require caregivers to postpone retirement in some cases.

Suggested Citation

  • Niimi, Yoko, 2017. "Does Providing Informal Elderly Care Hasten Retirement? Evidence from Japan," AGI Working Paper Series 2017-07, Asian Growth Research Institute.
    • Handle: RePEc:agi:wpaper:00000127
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    Cited by:

    1. Akira Yakita, 2024. "Old-age support policy and fertility with strategic bequest motives," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 37(2), pages 1-23, June.
    2. 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.
    3. Niimi, Yoko, 2021. "Juggling paid work and elderly care provision in Japan: Does a flexible work environment help family caregivers cope?," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    4. 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).
    5. 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.
    6. Georgia Casanova & Mirian Fernández-Salido & Carolina Moreno-Castro, 2023. "The Risk of Household Socioeconomic Deprivation Related to Older Long-Term Care Needs: A Qualitative Exploratory Study in Italy and Spain," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(20), pages 1-15, October.
    7. Giuseppe Croce & Andrea Ricci & Giuliana Tesauro, 2019. "Pensions reforms, workforce ageing and firm-provided welfare," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(32), pages 3480-3497, July.
    8. 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).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Aging; caregiving; elderly care; informal care; Japan; labor supply; long-term care; parental care; retirement;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D10 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - General
    • J14 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of the Elderly; Economics of the Handicapped; Non-Labor Market Discrimination
    • J26 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Retirement; Retirement Policies

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