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Informal Care Motivations and Intergenerational Transfers in European Countries
Author(s) -
JiménezMartín Sergi,
Vilaplana Prieto Cristina
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
health economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.55
H-Index - 109
eISSN - 1099-1050
pISSN - 1057-9230
DOI - 10.1002/hec.3135
Subject(s) - altruism (biology) , welfare , demographic economics , work (physics) , economics , public economics , order (exchange) , household income , labour economics , psychology , social psychology , mechanical engineering , finance , engineering , market economy , archaeology , history
Abstract This work sets out to analyze the motivations adult children may have to provide informal care, considering the monetary transfers they receive from their parents. Traditional motivations, such as altruism and exchange, are matched against more recent social bond theories. Our findings indicate that informal caregivers receive less frequent and less generous transfers than non‐caregivers; that is, caregivers are more prone to suppress their self‐interested motivations in order to prioritize the well being of another person. Additionally, long‐term public care benefits increase both the probability of receiving a transfer and its amount, with this effect being more intense for both the poorest and richest households. Our findings suggest that if long‐term care benefits are intended to increase the recipients' welfare and represent a higher fraction of total income for the poorest households, the effectiveness of these long‐term care policies may be diluted. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.