Long-Term Care of the Disabled Elderly: Do Children Increase Caregiving by Spouses?
- Presenter:
Chair: Sally Stearns; Discussant: Hua Wang Tue June 6, 2006 10:45-12:15 Room 326
How do adult children affect the care that their elderly parents provide to each other? We develop two models in which the anticipated behavior of adult children provides an incentive for elderly parents to provide more care for their disabled spouses than they otherwise would. Our first model is based on a “demonstration effect” — adult children learn from a parent’s example that family caregiving is appropriate behavior. Our second model is based on a “punishment effect” — if the nondisabled spouse fails to provide care for the disabled spouse, then the children may respond by not providing future care for the nondisabled spouse when care becomes necessary. Both models assume that the nondisabled elderly parent recognizes that his or her caregiving behavior will affect the children’s willingness to provide care in the future. Moreover, the demonstration effect and the punishment effect increase the likelihood that nondisabled spouses will provide care for disabled spouses if they have children or, more precisely, if they have joint children. Joint children act as a commitment mechanism, increasing the probability that elderly spouses will provide care for one another. Stepchildren, depending upon the agree of parental attachment, provide weaker incentives than joint children for spousal care. Preliminary estimates find strong evidence that spouses provide more care when they have children with strong parent attachment.
