How Do Middle-Aged Chinese Men and Women Balance Caregiving and Employment Income?

Huamin Chai,Rui Fu,Peter C Coyte

doi:10.3390/healthcare9040415

Huamin Chai, Rui Fu + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare9040415

Copy DOI

Abstract

Unpaid family caregivers might suffer losses in income as a result of care provision. Here we used data from the baseline survey of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study to assess the relationship between hours of weekly caregiving provided to grandchildren/parents/parents-in-law and individual’s monthly employment income. Our study sample comprised 3718 middle-aged Chinese adults who were of working age (45–60 years). For women and men separately, we used a likelihood-based method to determine a caregiving threshold in a two-stage Heckman selection procedure. Instrumental variables were used to rule out the endogeneity of caregiving hours. Our analysis revealed a negative association between caregiving and income for women that depended on a caregiving threshold of 63 h per week. There was an absence of caregiving-income relationship among men. These results offer new insights into the opportunity costs of unpaid caregiving and support tailored policies to protect the financial well-being of female caregivers.

Highlights

The purpose of this study is to identify the association between unpaid caregiving and the employment income of middle-aged Chinese adults who are of working age
Women who were caregivers had lower labour force participation (LFP) rates and employment income compared to their non-caregiving counterparts
Fiscal support for the provision of home-based formal care may best be targeted to individuals requiring more intensive caregiving, as our findings suggest intensive caregivers are at the greatest risk of lower employment income due to their lower propensity to be in the labour force, and when in the labour force, tend to earn less employment income

Summary

Introduction

The limited supply of publicly funded eldercare results in high demand for unpaid home-based informal care provision, where adult children, especially daughters and daughters-in-law, are usually tasked with such responsibility [2,3,4,5]. At the other end of the spectrum, childcare in these countries relies heavily on unpaid family caregivers, with grandparents often assuming the parental role for their grandchildren [6,7,8]. The most populous country in Asia and worldwide—China—is experiencing a striking decline in its working population that is projected to fall by 9% over the two decades [11]. Working-age Chinese adults in the middle of their lives are commonly tasked with caregiving duties, in particular, to care for their elderly parents and grandchildren

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion