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on Economics of Ageing |
| By: | Aïda Solé-Auró (Faculty of Economics, University of Barcelona); Montserrat Guillén (Faculty of Economics, University of Barcelona); Eileen M. Crimmins (Andrus Gerontology Center. University of Southern California) |
| Abstract: | Objective: This study examines health care utilization of immigrants relative to the native-born populations aged 50 years and older in eleven European countries. Methods: We analyzed data from the Survey of Health Aging and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) from 2004 for a sample of 27,444 individuals. Negative Binomial regression was conducted to examine the difference in number of doctor visits, visits to General Practitioners (GPs), and hospital stays between immigrants and the native-born. Results: We find evidence those immigrants above age 50 use health services on average more than the native-born populations with the same characteristics. Our models show immigrants have between 6% and 27% more expected visits to the doctor, GP or hospital stays when compared to native-born populations in a number of European countries. Discussion: Elderly immigrant populations might be using health services more intensively due to cultural reasons. |
| Keywords: | count data, physician services, immigration |
| Date: | 2009–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ira:wpaper:200920&r=age |
| By: | Helena Holmlund; Helmut Rainer; Thomas Siedler |
| Abstract: | An emerging question in demographic economics is whether there is a link between family size and the geographic distance between adult children and elderly parents. Given current population trends, understanding how different configurations of fam- ily size and sibship influence patterns of child-parent proximity is vitally important, as it impacts on issues such as intergenerational care and everyday mobility. It may be the case, for example, that larger families enable the responsibility of care for older parents to be shared among more siblings, possibly decreasing individual involvement and relaxing constraints on geographic mobility. However, there is no causal evidence to date on this issue. This study is the first attempt to estimate the causal effect of sibship size on the geographic distance between older parents and adult children by using a large administrative data set from Sweden. We find a positive association between sibship size and child-parent geographic distance. However, when we use multiple births and sibship sex composition as instruments for family size, we do not find any evidence that the observed positive relationship represents a causal effect. Given that family sizes are continuing to fall in many developed countries, our findings suggest that the trend towards smaller families will not necessarily result in adult children being more constrained in terms of their geographic location decisions, at least in countries with extensive state-provision of elderly care. |
| Keywords: | Family size, child-parent geographic proximity |
| JEL: | J10 C10 |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp923&r=age |
| By: | Karen Kopecky (University of Western Ontario); Tatyana Koreshkova (Concordia University) |
| Abstract: | We consider a life-cycle model with idiosyncratic risk in labor earnings, out-of-pocket medical and nursing home expenses, and survival. Partial insurance is available through welfare, Medicaid, and social security. Calibrating the model to the U.S., we find that nursing home expenses play an important role in the savings of the wealthy. In our policy analysis, we find that elimination of out-of-pocket expenses through public health care would reduce the capital stock by 12 percent, Medicaid and old-age welfare programs crowd out 44 percent of savings and greatly increase wealth inequality, and social security effects are influenced by out-of-pocket health expenses. |
| Keywords: | health expenses, nursing home, idiosyncratic risk, savings, wealth inequality, old-age social insurance |
| JEL: | E21 I18 I38 |
| Date: | 2009–06–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crd:wpaper:09006&r=age |
| By: | Marcén, Miriam; Molina, José Alberto |
| Abstract: | We study the effect that the care decision process has on the amount of caring-time and on informal caregiver satisfaction. We develop a theoretical framework in which we compare three two-stage sequential games, each of which corresponds to a different care decision (family, caregiver, and recipient). We find cases of overprovision of informal care in both the family and the recipient decision models, since the caregiver is obliged to spend more time than he/she would prefer. We then use the Spanish Survey of Informal Assistance for the Elderly (2004) to study the relationship between the care decision processes and the time that informal caregivers devote to care activities, with the results confirming our theoretical hypotheses. We also find that different care decision processes imply differences in the informal caregivers' satisfaction, with intensive caregivers being less likely to have greater satisfaction. |
| Keywords: | Informal Care; Informal Caregiver Satisfaction; Care Decision Process; Two-stage Sequential Game |
| JEL: | J10 C70 I10 |
| Date: | 2009–10–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:17739&r=age |