de Zwart P L, Bakx P, van Doorslaer E K A
University Medical Center Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands.
Institute of Health Policy and Management, Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR), Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
Health Econ. 2017 Sep;26 Suppl 2(Suppl Suppl 2):127-138. doi: 10.1002/hec.3542.
Informal care may substitute for formal long-term care that is often publicly funded or subsidized. The costs of informal caregiving are borne by the caregiver and may consist of worse health outcomes and, if the caregiver has not retired, worse labor market outcomes. We estimate the impact of providing informal care to one's partner on the caregiver's health using data from the Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe. We use statistical matching to deal with selection bias and endogeneity. We find that in the short run caregiving has a substantial effect on the health of caregivers and, for female caregivers, on their health care use. These effects should be taken into account when comparing the costs and benefits of formal and informal care provision. The health effects may, however, be short-lived, as we do not find any evidence that they persist after 4 or 7 years.
非正式照料可能会替代通常由公共资金资助或补贴的正式长期照料。非正式照料的成本由照料者承担，可能包括健康状况变差，如果照料者尚未退休，还可能包括劳动力市场表现变差。我们利用欧洲健康、老龄化与退休调查的数据，估计了照料伴侣对照料者健康的影响。我们使用统计匹配来处理选择偏差和内生性问题。我们发现，短期内，照料行为对照料者的健康有重大影响，对女性照料者而言，还会影响她们的医疗保健使用情况。在比较正式照料和非正式照料的成本与收益时，应考虑到这些影响。然而，这些健康影响可能是短期的，因为我们没有发现任何证据表明它们在4年或7年后仍然存在。
