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Unmet needs in formal care: kindling the spark for caregiving behavior

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Abstract

This paper studies if a situation of formal care unmet needs is a strong motivation for the onset of caregiving behavior, and if becoming caregiving is a compelling argument for leaving current job (in the presence/absence of formal care unmet needs). We use data from the Eurobarometer 67.3 for 18 European countries and estimate a three simultaneous equations model taking into account the potential endogeneity of labor participation and formal care unmet needs and assuming non-zero correlation among the error terms of the three equations. Results show that individuals who anticipate that becoming caregiver can suppose an obstacle for continuing working feel more refractory and are more prone to avoid caregiving responsibilities. Knowing someone with an unmet needs problem increases the probability of becoming caregiver by +19.23 pp (with a maximum of +39.39 pp for difficult access unmet needs) and raises the probability of leaving employment by 5.77 pp. Having to possibility of receiving economic benefits for caregivers encourage more labor market exit as compared to payment of social security contributions during care leaves.

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Notes

  1. However, we recognize that caregiving is not restricted to any particular age cohort. As Becker et al. (1998) remark, even children and young people can have onerous caregiving responsibilities.

  2. The variables “current occupation” and “last occupation” have been defined using the questions: “D15a. What is your current occupation?” and “D15b. Did you do any paid work in the past? What was your last occupation?” The last item on the questionnaire, regarding when the change in economic activity took place, does not allow us to control for time elapsed since labor market exit.

  3. The estimation of the three-equation model allows us to capture the causal effect of SW and UN on IC, and the causal effect of UN on SW. By contrast, the estimation of the independent probit equations ignores the correlation among the error terms and leads to inefficient results, where the causal and the spurious effect are combined. For example, consider the case of an unemployed woman looking after her elderly parent because she does not trust formal care, and that the unemployment situation started before the caregiving period. The estimation of the independent probit equations will capture a positive but spurious relationship between informal care and job withdrawal. What’s more, the estimation of the independent probit equations for caregiving and unmet needs will be unable to capture the “pure” effect of the “absence” of unmet needs on the caregiving probability.

  4. The distance in the estimated effect between the result in Nordic countries (\(-\)13.82 pp) and the result in Transition countries (\(-\)8.6 pp) highlights the difference between having a higher percentage of caregivers (i.e., 32.4 % in Nordic countries as opposed to 26.3 % in Transition countries) and having a higher percentage of caregivers who were working in the past, but not at the time of the survey (45.9 % in Transition countries vs. 25.5 % in Nordic countries).

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Acknowledgments

Financial help from project ECO2011-30323-C03-02 and ECO2011-2850 from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology is gratefully acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dpto. Fundamentos Análisis Económico, Facultad de Economía y Empresa, Universidad de Murcia, Campus de Espinardo, s/n, 30100, Murcia, Spain

    Cristina Vilaplana Prieto

  2. FEDEA, Madrid, Spain

    Cristina Vilaplana Prieto & Sergi Jiménez-Martín

  3. Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain

    Sergi Jiménez-Martín

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  1. Cristina Vilaplana Prieto
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  2. Sergi Jiménez-Martín
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Correspondence to Cristina Vilaplana Prieto.

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Table 10 Definition of the variables and sources of the data
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Vilaplana Prieto, C., Jiménez-Martín, S. Unmet needs in formal care: kindling the spark for caregiving behavior. Int J Health Econ Manag. 15, 153–184 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10754-015-9161-5

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