IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/hlthec/v25y2016i7p829-843.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Does Formal Employment Reduce Informal Caregiving?

Author

Listed:
  • Daifeng He
  • Peter McHenry

Abstract

Using the Survey of Income and Program Participation, we examine the impact of formal employment on informal caregiving. We instrument for individual work hours with state unemployment rates. We find that, among women of prime caregiving ages (40–64 years), working 10% more hours per week reduces the probability of providing informal care by about 2 percentage points. The effects are stronger for more time‐intensive caregiving and if care recipients are household members. Our results imply that work‐promoting policies have the unintended consequence of reducing informal caregiving in an aging society. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Suggested Citation

  • Daifeng He & Peter McHenry, 2016. "Does Formal Employment Reduce Informal Caregiving?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(7), pages 829-843, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:25:y:2016:i:7:p:829-843
    DOI: 10.1002/hec.3185
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/hec.3185
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/hec.3185?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jonathan Gruber & Kevin Milligan & David A. Wise, 2009. "Social Security Programs and Retirement Around the World: The Relationship to Youth Employment, Introduction and Summary," NBER Working Papers 14647, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Carmichael, F. & Charles, S. & Hulme, C., 2010. "Who will care? Employment participation and willingness to supply informal care," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 182-190, January.
    3. Olena Nizalova, 2012. "The Wage Elasticity of Informal Care Supply: Evidence from the Health and Retirement Study," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 79(2), pages 350-366, October.
    4. Kathleen M. McGarry, 1998. "Caring for the Elderly: The Role of Adult Children," NBER Chapters, in: Inquiries in the Economics of Aging, pages 133-166, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. 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.
    6. 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.
    7. 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.
    8. Kathleen M. McGarry, 2006. "Does Caregiving Affect Work? Evidence Based on Prior Labor Force Experience," NBER Chapters, in: Health Care Issues in the United States and Japan, pages 209-228, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. David A. Wise, 1998. "Inquiries in the Economics of Aging," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number wise98-2.
    10. Carmichael, Fiona & Charles, Sue, 1998. "The labour market costs of community care1," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(6), pages 747-765, December.
    11. 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.
    12. McInerney, Melissa & Mellor, Jennifer M., 2012. "Recessions and seniors’ health, health behaviors, and healthcare use: Analysis of the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(5), pages 744-751.
    13. Leigh, Andrew, 2010. "Informal care and labor market participation," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 140-149, January.
    14. Jacobs, Josephine C. & Laporte, Audrey & Van Houtven, Courtney H. & Coyte, Peter C., 2014. "Caregiving intensity and retirement status in Canada," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 74-82.
    15. Mark L. Bryan, 2012. "Access to Flexible Working and Informal Care," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 59(4), pages 361-389, September.
    16. Michaud, Pierre-Carl & Heitmueller, Axel & Nazarov, Zafar, 2010. "A dynamic analysis of informal care and employment in England," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 455-465, June.
    17. Hilary Hoynes & Douglas L. Miller & Jessamyn Schaller, 2012. "Who Suffers during Recessions?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 26(3), pages 27-48, Summer.
    18. Van Houtven, Courtney Harold & Norton, Edward C., 2008. "Informal care and Medicare expenditures: Testing for heterogeneous treatment effects," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 134-156, January.
    19. Emmanouil Mentzakis & Paul McNamee & Mandy Ryan, 2009. "Who cares and how much: exploring the determinants of co-residential informal care," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 7(3), pages 305-305, September.
    20. Ciani, Emanuele, 2012. "Informal adult care and caregivers' employment in Europe," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 155-164.
    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. Norma B. Coe & Jing Guo & R. Tamara Konetzka & Courtney Harold Van Houtven, 2019. "What is the marginal benefit of payment‐induced family care? Impact on Medicaid spending and health of care recipients," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(5), pages 678-692, May.
    2. 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.
    3. Mak, Henry Y., 2018. "Managing imperfect competition by pay for performance and reference pricing," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 131-146.
    4. Raab, Roman, 2017. "Retirement and Informal Care-giving: Behavioral Patterns among Older Workers," JRC Working Papers in Economics and Finance 2017-08, Joint Research Centre, European Commission.
    5. Ludovico Carrino & Vahé Nafilyan & Mauricio Avendano, 2023. "Should I Care or Should I Work? The Impact of Work on Informal Care," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(2), pages 424-455, March.
    6. 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).
    7. Annarita Macchioni Giaquinto & Andrew M. Jones & Nigel Rice & Francesca Zantomio, 2022. "Labor supply and informal care responses to health shocks within couples: Evidence from the UK," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(12), pages 2700-2720, December.
    8. Carrino, L.; & Nafilyan, V.; & Avendaño Pabon, M.;, 2019. "Should I Care or Should I Work? The Impact of Working in Older Age on Caregiving," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 19/23, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    9. Simard-Duplain, Gaëlle, 2022. "Heterogeneity in informal care intensity and its impact on employment," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    10. 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).
    11. Russell, Helen & Grotti, Raffaele & McGinnity, Fran & Privalko, Ivan, 2019. "Caring and unpaid work in Ireland," Research Series, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), number BKMNEXT382.
    12. John Rodwell & Dianne Johnson & Lara Thynne, 2024. "Discretion and Obligation Across Volunteering and Caring: Shining Light on Non-Voluntary Carers in the Retiring Encore Segment," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 174(2), pages 589-610, September.
    13. Mommaerts, Corina & Truskinovsky, Yulya, 2020. "The cyclicality of informal care," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    14. Carmichael, Fiona & Ercolani, Marco G., 2016. "Unpaid caregiving and paid work over life-courses: Different pathways, diverging outcomes," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 1-11.
    15. Zhu, Rong & Onur, Ilke, 2023. "Does retirement (really) increase informal caregiving? Quasi-experimental evidence from Australia," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).

    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. Simard-Duplain, Gaëlle, 2022. "Heterogeneity in informal care intensity and its impact on employment," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    2. 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).
    3. 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.
    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. Nicola Ciccarelli & Arthur Soest, 2018. "Informal Caregiving, Employment Status and Work Hours of the 50+ Population in Europe," De Economist, Springer, vol. 166(3), pages 363-396, September.
    6. Nishimura, Y.; Oikawa, M.;, 2017. "Effects of Informal Elderly Care on Labor Supply: Exploitation of Government Intervention on the Supply Side of Elderly Care Market," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 17/02, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    7. 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.
    8. Mommaerts, Corina & Truskinovsky, Yulya, 2020. "The cyclicality of informal care," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    9. Joan Costa-Font & Martin Karlsson & Henning Øien, 2015. "Informal Care and the Great Recession," CINCH Working Paper Series 1502, Universitaet Duisburg-Essen, Competent in Competition and Health, revised Feb 2015.
    10. Sean Urwin & Yiu‐Shing Lau & Thomas Mason, 2019. "Investigating the relationship between formal and informal care: An application using panel data for people living together," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(8), pages 984-997, August.
    11. 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.
    12. 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.
    13. Ha Trong Nguyen & Luke B. Connelly, 2017. "The Dynamics of Informal Care Provision in an Australian Household Panel Survey: Previous Work Characteristics and Future Care Provision," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 93(302), pages 395-419, September.
    14. 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.
    15. 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.
    16. Ludovico Carrino & Vahé Nafilyan & Mauricio Avendano, 2023. "Should I Care or Should I Work? The Impact of Work on Informal Care," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(2), pages 424-455, March.
    17. Carrino, L.; & Nafilyan, V.; & Avendaño Pabon, M.;, 2019. "Should I Care or Should I Work? The Impact of Working in Older Age on Caregiving," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 19/23, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    18. Jacobs, Josephine C. & Van Houtven, Courtney H. & Laporte, Audrey & Coyte, Peter C., 2015. "Baby Boomer caregivers in the workforce: Do they fare better or worse than their predecessors?," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 6(C), pages 89-101.
    19. 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.
    20. Bruce Hollingsworth & Asako Ohinata & Matteo Picchio & Ian Walker, 2022. "The Impacts of Free Universal Elderly Care on the Supply of Informal Care and Labour Supply," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 84(4), pages 933-960, August.

    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:wly:hlthec:v:25:y:2016:i:7:p:829-843. 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://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/jhome/5749 .

    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.