Kotsadam Andreas
Norwegian Social Research, Elisenberg, Oslo, Norway.
Int J Health Care Finance Econ. 2012 Dec;12(4):269-83. doi: 10.1007/s10754-012-9116-z. Epub 2012 Sep 16.
Informal eldercare is an important pillar of modern welfare states and the ongoing demographic transition increases the demand for it while social trends reduce the supply. Substantial opportunity costs of informal eldercare in terms of forgone labor opportunities have been identified, yet the effects seem to differ substantially across states and there is a controversy on the effects in the Nordic welfare states. In this study, the effects of informal care on the probability of being employed, the number of hours worked, and wages in Norway are analyzed using data from the Life cOurse, Generation, and Gender survey. New and previously suggested instrumental variables are used to control for the potential endogeneity existing between informal care and employment-related outcomes. In total, being an informal caregiver in Norway is found to entail substantially less costs in terms of forgone formal employment opportunities than in non-Nordic welfare states.
非正式老年护理是现代福利国家的重要支柱，当前的人口结构转变增加了对其的需求，而社会趋势却减少了供给。已确定非正式老年护理在放弃劳动机会方面存在巨大的机会成本，但其影响在不同国家似乎有很大差异，并且对于北欧福利国家的影响存在争议。在本研究中，利用“生命历程、代际与性别”调查的数据，分析了挪威非正式护理对就业概率、工作时长和工资的影响。使用新的和先前提出的工具变量来控制非正式护理与就业相关结果之间潜在的内生性。总体而言，与非北欧福利国家相比，在挪威成为一名非正式护理者在放弃正式就业机会方面所带来的成本要低得多。
