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Who cares and how much: exploring the determinants of co-residential informal care

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An Erratum to this article was published on 10 March 2009

Abstract

The importance of informal care provided inside the household (co-residential care) is widely acknowledged in policy circles. However, the factors that determine the likelihood and scale of provision are not fully understood. A two-part model (2PM) is used to investigate both participation and levels of provision. Random effects dynamic panel specifications are employed. Results show that co-residential informal care competes with other time demanding activities, such as childcare and employment. Wealthier individuals are less likely to be caregivers, whereas wealthier households have a higher tendency towards caregiving. Evidence of both substitution and complementarity is found between formal and informal care. Informal care and health status are significantly related, with carers more likely to report worse General Health Questionnaire scores than non-carers. Finally, significant dynamic effects are observed with the continuance of the provision of informal care being more likely than the initiation of such activity, while heavy commitment in the past increases the hours provided in the current period.

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Notes

  1. Carer and caregiver denote a person who provides care and are used interchangeably.

  2. Informal care provided for individuals outside the caregiver’s household.

  3. “Total sample” denotes the sample after the selection criteria are applied.

  4. The 12-item GHQ uses a scoring method where scores of 0–1 are assigned according to the severity of each item response and then summed across items, providing a score that ranges from 0 to 12, zero being the best and 12 the worst possible health state.

  5. The R 2 from a regression of the inverse Mill’s ratio against the independent variables (Nelson 1984) was estimated around 0.80 and the condition number much higher than the suggested threshold value of 20 (Puhani 2000).

  6. The second-part is augmented by information on the characteristics of the recipient as well as information regarding the use of formal care by the recipient. The nature of these variables made them available just for the level analysis. Those who did not provide any care did not have a recipient whose characteristics could be included in the probit models.

  7. In particular Stern (1995) used previous period values as instruments when modelling the effects of employment on informal care.

  8. It could be argued that the decision to ask for a formal care assessment is endogenous to the decision to provide care. However, as formal care does not enter the first step regression such estimation bias is unlikely, although potential omitted variable bias might be present.

  9. Population averaged parameters are needed only for panel models and are obtained as \( \beta_{a} = \beta *\left( {1 + \sigma_{u}^{2} } \right)^{ - 1/2} , \) with \( \rho = \frac{{\sigma_{u}^{2} }}{{1 + \sigma_{u}^{2} }} \) being the intra-class correlation coefficient.

  10. As the panel models are preferred, pooled models are omitted from the presentation.

  11. The estimation results are omitted from the tables (but they are available upon request) as the changes are concentrated on the variables of interest.

  12. The results are not given in tables but are available from the authors.

  13. For males estimations failed to converge due to small sample sizes.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics, McMaster University, 1280 Main St. West, Hamilton, ON, Canada, L8S 4M4

    Emmanouil Mentzakis

  2. Health Economics Research Unit, University of Aberdeen, Polwarth Building, Foresterhill, Aberdeen, AB25 2ZD, UK

    Paul McNamee & Mandy Ryan

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  1. Emmanouil Mentzakis
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  2. Paul McNamee
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Correspondence to Emmanouil Mentzakis.

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An erratum to this article can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11150-009-9050-0

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Mentzakis, E., McNamee, P. & Ryan, M. Who cares and how much: exploring the determinants of co-residential informal care. Rev Econ Household 7, 283–303 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11150-008-9047-0

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