IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/popdev/v41y2015i2p183-206.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Who Takes Care of Whom in the United States? Time Transfers by Age and Sex

Author

Listed:
  • Denys Dukhovnov
  • Emilio Zagheni

Abstract

type="main"> Non-monetary transfers of time represent a largely unknown, yet pivotal component, of the support system in the United States. We map flows of time transfers, by age and sex, related to informal childcare and adult care in the US. We develop methods to estimate intra- and inter-household time transfers using data from the American Time Use Survey (2011–2013). We summarize the results in matrices of time flows by age and sex for the general US population, as well as for the “sandwich generation.” Most time transfers flow downwards from parents to young children, with relevant gender differences. The time produced by the sandwich generation is directed toward a more diverse population spectrum, including substantial intra-generational transfers to spouses. Extrapolations based on our findings reveal a projected rise in demand, relative to supply, of informal care, indicating that, to maintain current levels of care, US society will have to rely more heavily either on the market or on an increased effort of caregivers.

Suggested Citation

  • Denys Dukhovnov & Emilio Zagheni, 2015. "Who Takes Care of Whom in the United States? Time Transfers by Age and Sex," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 41(2), pages 183-206, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:popdev:v:41:y:2015:i:2:p:183-206
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/j.1728-4457.2015.00044.x
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Simon Kuznets, 1934. "National Income, 1929-1932," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number kuzn34-1.
    2. Emily E. Wiemers & Suzanne M. Bianchi, 2015. "Competing Demands from Aging Parents and Adult Children in Two Cohorts of American Women," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 41(1), pages 127-146, March.
    3. Emilio Zagheni & Marina Zannella, 2013. "The life cycle dimension of time transfers in Europe," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 29(35), pages 937-948.
    4. Andrew Mason & Ronald Lee, 2011. "Population aging and the generational economy: key findings," Chapters, in: Ronald Lee & Andrew Mason (ed.), Population Aging and the Generational Economy, chapter 1, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    5. Bernard van den Berg & Pol Spauwen, 2006. "Measurement of informal care: an empirical study into the valid measurement of time spent on informal caregiving," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 15(5), pages 447-460, May.
    6. 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).
    7. Julie C. Lima & Susan M. Allen & Frances Goldscheider & Orna Intrator, 2008. "Spousal Caregiving in Late Midlife Versus Older Ages: Implications of Work and Family Obligations," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 63(4), pages 229-238.
    8. repec:bla:revinw:v:45:y:1999:i:4:p:519-29 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Van Houtven, Courtney Harold & Norton, Edward C., 2004. "Informal care and health care use of older adults," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(6), pages 1159-1180, November.
    10. Ronald Lee & Andrew Mason (ed.), 2011. "Population Aging and the Generational Economy," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 13816.
    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. Sylvie Arlotto & Stéphanie Gentile & Alice Blin & Anne-Claire Durand & Sylvie Bonin-Guillaume, 2022. "Caregiver Burden Is Reduced by Social Support Services for Non-Dependent Elderly Persons: Pre-Post Study of 569 Caregivers," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(20), pages 1-12, October.
    2. Chiara Mussida & Raffaella Patimo, 2021. "Women’s Family Care Responsibilities, Employment and Health: A Tale of Two Countries," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 42(3), pages 489-507, September.
    3. Zohra Ansari-Thomas, 2024. "Sandwich Caregiving and Paid Work: Differences by Caregiving Intensity and Women’s Life Stage," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 43(1), pages 1-46, February.
    4. Elisenda Rentería & Rosario Scandurra & Guadalupe Souto & Concepció Patxot, 2016. "Intergenerational money and time transfers by gender in Spain: Who are the actual dependents?," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 34(24), pages 689-704.
    5. Diego Alburez‐Gutierrez & Carl Mason & Emilio Zagheni, 2021. "The “Sandwich Generation” Revisited: Global Demographic Drivers of Care Time Demands," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 47(4), pages 997-1023, December.
    6. Marco Albertini & Aviad Tur-Sinai & Noah Lewin-Epstein & Merril Silverstein, 2022. "The Older Sandwich Generation Across European Welfare Regimes: Demographic and Social Considerations," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 38(2), pages 273-300, May.
    7. Kashnitsky, Ilya & de Beer, Joop & van Wissen, Leo, 2017. "Decomposition of regional convergence in population aging across Europe," OSF Preprints ykqbv, Center for Open Science.
    8. Unchitta Kan & Jericho McLeod & Eduardo López, 2024. "Non-coresident family as a driver of migration change in a crisis: the case of the COVID-19 pandemic," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-11, December.
    9. Chiara Mussida & Raffaella Patimo, 2018. "Women’s care responsibilities, employment and health: a two countries’ tale," DISCE - Quaderni del Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Sociali dises141, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimenti e Istituti di Scienze Economiche (DISCE).
    10. Denys Dukhovnov & Emilio Zagheni, 2019. "Transfers of informal care time in the United States: the role of demographic differentials in intergenerational flows by age, sex, and racial and national background," Vienna Yearbook of Population Research, Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, vol. 17(1), pages 163-197.
    11. 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.
    12. Denys Dukhovnov & Joan M. Ryan & Emilio Zagheni, 2022. "“The Impact of Demographic Change on Transfers of Care and Associated Well-being”," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 41(6), pages 2419-2446, 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. Denys Dukhovnov & Joan M. Ryan & Emilio Zagheni, 2022. "“The Impact of Demographic Change on Transfers of Care and Associated Well-being”," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 41(6), pages 2419-2446, December.
    2. Hippolyte d’ALBIS & Dalal MOOSA, 2015. "Generational Economics and the National Transfer Accounts," JODE - Journal of Demographic Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 81(4), pages 409-441, December.
    3. Denys Dukhovnov & Joan Ryan & Emilio Zagheni, 2020. "The impact of demographic change on transfers of care and associated well-being," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2020-022, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    4. Elisenda Rentería & Rosario Scandurra & Guadalupe Souto & Concepció Patxot, 2016. "Intergenerational money and time transfers by gender in Spain: Who are the actual dependents?," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 34(24), pages 689-704.
    5. Zannella, Marina, 2015. "Reallocation of resources between generations and genders in the market and non-market economy. The case of Italy," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 5(C), pages 33-44.
    6. Ana Seme & Lili Vargha & Tanja Istenic & Joze Sambt, 2019. "Historical patterns of unpaid work in Europe: NTTA results by age and gender," Vienna Yearbook of Population Research, Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, vol. 17(1), pages 121-140.
    7. Barik, Debasis & Desai, Sonalde & Vanneman, Reeve, 2018. "Economic Status and Adult Mortality in India: Is the Relationship Sensitive to Choice of Indicators?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 176-187.
    8. Marisa Bucheli & Cecilia Lara, 2018. "Revealing gender gap changes in home production and labor income in Uruguay," Documentos de Trabajo (working papers) 18-12, Instituto de Economía - IECON.
    9. Kolk, Martin, 2019. "Demographic Theory and Population Ethics – Relationships between Population Size and Population Growth," SocArXiv 62wxd, Center for Open Science.
    10. Mikkel Christoffer Barslund & Marten von Werder, 2016. "Measuring dependency ratios using National Transfer Accounts," Vienna Yearbook of Population Research, Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, vol. 14(1), pages 155-186.
    11. Urwin, Sean & Lau, Yiu-Shing & Grande, Gunn & Sutton, Matt, 2021. "The extent and predictors of discrepancy between provider and recipient reports of informal caregiving," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 277(C).
    12. Lee, R., 2016. "Macroeconomics, Aging, and Growth," 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 59-118, Elsevier.
    13. Lili Vargha & Róbert Iván Gál & Michelle O. Crosby-Nagy, 2017. "Household production and consumption over the life cycle: National Time Transfer Accounts in 14 European countries," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 36(32), pages 905-944.
    14. Gretchen Donehower, 2018. "Measuring the Gendered Economy," Working Papers cwwwp4, University of Cape Town, Development Policy Research Unit.
    15. Laurence J. Kotlikoff & Andrey V. ZUBAREV & Andrey POLBIN, 2021. "Will the Paris accord accelerate climate change [Ускоряет Ли Парижское Соглашение Изменение Климата?]," Ekonomicheskaya Politika / Economic Policy, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, vol. 1, pages 8-37, February.
    16. Mejía-Guevara, Iván, 2015. "Economic inequality and intergenerational transfers: Evidence from Mexico," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 5(C), pages 23-32.
    17. Sang-Hyop Lee & Jungsuk Kim & Donghyun Park, 2017. "Demographic Change and Fiscal Sustainability in Asia," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 134(1), pages 287-322, October.
    18. De Neve, Jan-Walter & Fink, Günther, 2018. "Children’s education and parental old age survival – Quasi-experimental evidence on the intergenerational effects of human capital investment," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 76-89.
    19. Ahmed, S. Amer & Vargas Da Cruz,Marcio Jose & Quillin,Bryce Ramsey & Schellekens,Philip, 2016. "Demographic change and development : a global typology," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7893, The World Bank.
    20. Emilio Zagheni & Brittney Wagner, 2015. "The impact of demographic change on intergenerational transfers via bequests," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 33(18), pages 525-534.

    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:bla:popdev:v:41:y:2015:i:2:p:183-206. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0098-7921 .

    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.