Abstract
Informal eldercare is an important pillar of modern welfare states and the ongoing demographic transition increases the demand for it while social trends reduce the supply. Substantial opportunity costs of informal eldercare in terms of forgone labor opportunities have been identified, yet the effects seem to differ substantially across states and there is a controversy on the effects in the Nordic welfare states. In this study, the effects of informal care on the probability of being employed, the number of hours worked, and wages in Norway are analyzed using data from the Life cOurse, Generation, and Gender survey. New and previously suggested instrumental variables are used to control for the potential endogeneity existing between informal care and employment-related outcomes. In total, being an informal caregiver in Norway is found to entail substantially less costs in terms of forgone formal employment opportunities than in non-Nordic welfare states.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Gerhard, B. (Ed.), Anxo D., Fagan C. (2005) Working in the Service Sector: A Tale from Different Worlds. Routledge, New York, pp 133–64
Bolin K., Lindgren B., Lundborg P. (2008) Informal and formal care among single-living elderly in Europe. Health Economics 17(3): 393–409
Bonsang E. (2009) Does informal care from children to their elderly parents substitute for formal care in europe?. Journal of Health Economics 28(1): 143–54
Brunborg H., Slagsvold B., Lappegård T. (2009) LOGG 2007: en stor undersøkelse om livsløp, generasjon og kjønn. Samfunnsspeilet 23(1): 2–8
Carmichael F., Charles S. (1998) The labour market costs of community care. Journal of Health Economics 17(6): 747–65
Carmichael F., Charles S. (2003) The opportunity costs of informal care: Does gender matter?. Journal of Health Economics 22(5): 781–803
Carmichael F., Charles S. (2003) Benefit payments, informal care and female labour supply. Applied Economics Letters 10(7): 411–15
Carmichael F., Charles S., Hulme C. (2010) Who will care? Employment participation and willingness to supply informal care. Journal of Health Economics 29: 182–190
Carmichael, F., Conell, C., Hulme, C., & Sheppard, S. (2004). Who cares and at what cost? The incidence and the opportunity costs of informal care. Management and Management Science Research Institute Working Paper, no. 209/05.
Carmichael F., Hulme C., Sheppard S., Conell C. (2008) Work-life imbalance: Informal care and paid employment in the UK. Feminist Economics 14(2): 3–35
Daatland S.-O., Herlofson K. (2003) Lost solidarity’ or ‘changed solidarity’: A comparative European view of normative family solidarity. Ageing & Society 23(05): 537–560
Eurostat ESSPROS. (2006) European system of integrated social protection statistics, http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/.
Ettner S. (1996) The opportunity costs of elder care. Journal of Human Resources 31(1): 189–205
Heitmueller A. (2007) The chicken or the egg? Endogeneity in labor market participation of informal carers in England. Journal of Health Economics 26: 536–59
Heitmueller, S., Inglis, K. (2004). Carefree? Participation and pay differentials for informal carers in Britain. IZA Discussion paper No 1273.
Heitmueller S., Inglis K. (2007) The earnings of informal carers: Wage differentials and opportunity costs. Journal of Health Economics 26: 821–41
Huseby, B., & Paulsen, B. (2009). Eldreomsorgen i Norge: Helt utilstrekkelig - eller best i verden? SINTEF Rapport, Mai.
Johnson, R., & Lo Sasso, A. (2000). The trade-off between hours of paid employment and time assistance to elderly parents at midlife. The Urban Institute working papers
Kotsadam A. (2011) Does informal eldercare impede women’s employment? The case of European welfare states. Feminist Economics 17(2): 121–144
Leigh A. (2010) Informal care and labor market participation. Labour Economics 17: 140–149
Michaud P.-C., Heitmueller A., Nazarov Z. (2010) A dynamic analysis of informal care and employment in England. Labour Economics 17(3): 455–465
OECD. (2005). The OECD health project: Long-term care for older people. Paris: OECD
Pavalko E., Artis J. (2003) Explaining the decline in women’s household labor: Individual change and cohort differences. Journal of Marriage and Family 65(3): 746–61
Pezzin L., Schone B. (1999) Intergenerational household formation, female labor supply and informal caregiving: A bargaining approach. The Journal of Human Resources 34(3): 475–503
Spiess K., Schneider U. (2003) Interactions between care-giving and paid work hours among European midlife women, 1994 to 1996. Ageing and Society 23: 41–68
Staiger D., Stock J. (1997) Instrumental variables regression with weak instruments. Econometrica 65(3): 557–586
Van Houtven C.H., Norton E.C. (2004) Informal care and elderly health care use. Journal of Health Economics 23: 1159–80
Van Houtven C.H., Norton E.C. (2008) Informal care and medicare expenditures: Testing for heterogeneous treatment effects. Journal of Health Economics 27: 134–15
WHO. (2002). Active ageing. A policy framework. Geneve: World Health Organization.
Wolf D., Soldo B. (1994) Married women’s allocation of time to employment and care of elderly parents. Journal of Human Resources 29(3): 1259–76
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Kotsadam, A. The employment costs of caregiving in Norway. Int J Health Care Finance Econ 12, 269–283 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10754-012-9116-z
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10754-012-9116-z