Department of Economics and Management, Università degli Studi di Pavia, Via San Felice, 5 - 27100, Pavia, Italy(1).
Health Policy. 2021 Mar;125(3):415-423. doi: 10.1016/j.healthpol.2020.11.014. Epub 2020 Dec 10.
In Italy, over the last decades, elderly care has been mostly provided by family members, especially adult offspring, and in particular daughters. This paper investigates the relationship between informal caregiving and mental distress among Italians aged 35-59, with a focus on gender effect and parenthood responsibilities.
The dataset is the European Health Interview Survey (EHIS), second wave, year 2015. As far as it is known, the Italian EHIS has not been used for studies on ageing and caregiving.
Using selected subsamples, a Propensity Score Matching between caregivers and non-caregivers aged 35-59 is implemented, with the aim of measuring the difference in level of depression, if any, between the two groups.
Findings show that women providing their frail relatives with informal care are less likely to suffer from mental distress compared to non-carers. However, results change radically if they have children aged less than 15 at home, and a higher probability of being depressed is detected for women overwhelmed by the double responsibility of assisting both dependent relatives and their own children. Results are not significant for men.
在意大利，过去几十年来，老年人护理主要由家庭成员提供，尤其是成年子女，尤其是女儿。本文研究了意大利 35-59 岁人群中非正式护理与精神困扰之间的关系，重点关注性别效应和父母责任。
该数据集是欧洲健康访谈调查（EHIS）的第二波，年份为 2015 年。据了解，意大利 EHIS 尚未用于老龄化和护理研究。
使用选定的子样本，对 35-59 岁的护理人员和非护理人员进行倾向评分匹配，旨在衡量两组之间抑郁水平的差异（如果存在）。
研究结果表明，与非护理人员相比，为体弱亲属提供非正式护理的女性患精神困扰的可能性较小。然而，如果她们家中有 15 岁以下的孩子，情况就会发生根本性的变化，因为这些女性承担着照顾依赖亲属和自己孩子的双重责任，抑郁的可能性更高。对于男性来说，结果并不显著。
