Abstract
The “personal services” sector receives substantial public support whose legitimacy depends on both its impact in terms of job creation and on the affordability of such services for low-income households. The GGS survey sheds light on the factors associated with recourse to paid domestic help in France.
Two distinct patterns can be identified: domestic help as a response to loss of autonomy for older adults, and as a luxury commodity for the most affluent households. While these services are used by one in five adults aged 75 or above, whatever their income level, only the most affluent economically active households employ a paid helper.
The longitudinal GGS data also show that use of these services increases in response to certain life events, such as a birth, a health problem or a rise in unearned income.
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Notes
- 1.
While the scope of personal services is precisely defined by decree, and includes 23 specific activities (Ould Younes 2010), the delimitation of public financing for the sector is much less clear-cut (Cour des Comptes 2014). Here we include the measures serving to directly finance home intervention (tax and social exemptions, APA for home care and PCH for home care).
- 2.
Measuring employment in this sector is difficult for at least two main reasons: the ubiquity of part-time work (with average weekly working hours of 26 h for home carers and 18.5 h for home employees according to the 2013 Conditions de travail (Working Conditions) survey) and the large numbers of workers with more than one employer, which creates numerous potential “duplications” when the employees are counted.
- 3.
The question enables us to unequivocally include all domestic services. However, only domiciliary care services including a certain amount of housework are concerned, in contrast to interventions exclusively involving the person receiving care. Consequently, we make a distinction between “help with daily life” and “help with basic activities of daily living”. A recent survey of 1855 users showed that just 6% did not receive “help with daily life”. Domiciliary care can thus be included in this analysis.
- 4.
In 2007, the tax reduction was transformed into a tax credit for economically active households. These households get a tax refund if the amount of tax they owe is at least 50% less than the cost of employing a domestic help, with an annual ceiling of €12,000. For a complete review of these regulatory provisions, see Benoteau and Goun (2014).
- 5.
This difference in findings may also result from the methods used, as Claire Marbot’s observation is not based on a regression that controls for all other characteristics.
- 6.
Waves 2 and 3 are made representative of the population observed in Wave 1 (2005) and the age coverage changes from one wave to the next (18–79 in 2005 and 24–85 in 2011). See Chap. 2 for more information on this point. The sample comprised 973 households outsourcing domestic services in 2005, 832 in 2008 and 853 in 2011.
- 7.
See Appendix Table 11.4 for a description of some of the characteristics of these four groups.
- 8.
Using data from the Family Budget survey, Benoteau and Goin (2014) show that the two top deciles account for 39.2% of outsourcing households (all ages combined) both in 2005 and 2011, but with slight growth in the share of the ninth decile compared with the tenth.
- 9.
Note also that a volume effect by user could also appear. The data available in the French GGS survey cannot be used to verify this hypothesis.
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Devetter, FX. (2017). Changes in Demand for Paid Domestic Help. In: Régnier-Loilier, A. (eds) A Longitudinal Approach to Family Trajectories in France. INED Population Studies, vol 7. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56001-4_11
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