Heitmueller Axel
Centre for New and Emerging Markets, London Business School, Regent's Park, London NW1 4SA, UK.
J Health Econ. 2007 May 1;26(3):536-59. doi: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2006.10.005. Epub 2006 Nov 13.
Around 14% of the UK labour force has informal care responsibilities and almost everyone in society will be an informal carer in their lifetime. A well-known fact in the small economic literature on informal care is the apparent negative relation between care responsibilities and labour market participation. Yet, caring and labour market participation may be endogenous. Using an instrumental variable approach and panel data techniques and employing data from the British Household Panel Study from 1991 to 2002, this paper shows that not accommodating for endogeneity in the labour market participation equation may significantly overestimate the impact care exhibits on the employment decision of informal carers. Moreover, it is shown that a negative impact on employment only applies to some care-types. Policy implications are derived.
英国约14%的劳动力承担着非正式护理责任，社会上几乎每个人在其一生中都会成为非正式护理者。在关于非正式护理的少量经济文献中，一个广为人知的事实是护理责任与劳动力市场参与之间明显存在负相关关系。然而，护理与劳动力市场参与可能是内生的。本文使用工具变量法和面板数据技术，并采用1991年至2002年英国家庭面板调查的数据，表明在劳动力市场参与方程中不考虑内生性可能会显著高估护理对非正式护理者就业决策的影响。此外，研究表明，对就业的负面影响仅适用于某些护理类型。文中还得出了政策含义。
