Informal support for the elderly in the context of their living arrangements in selected European countries

Abstract

The main objective of this paper is to analyze the informal support for the elderly experiencing problems in everyday life connected with physical, mental or emotional fitness. The analysis covers groups of countries chosen from the participants of SHARE project. The multinomial logit model has been used in order to verify the hypothesis that such problems determine the living arrangements of the elderly. The binomial regression model has been used in order to answer a question if informal support from outside the household obtained by the people experiencing problems in everyday life is determined by the type of the household and by social and demographic characteristics of the individuals receiving the support. In conclusion we state that the occurrence of difficulties in everyday life does not affect the chance of living in a one-person household. For the other types of the households the aforementioned influence turns out to be significant only for selected countries. In all investigated countries, for people experiencing difficulties in everyday life, a significant influence of the type of the household on receiving help from outside the household has been observed. In future research, a closer attention should be paid to elderly people living alone and to incorporating various types of limitations in everyday life separately for men and women. For better explanation of the differences between post-transitional and the other European countries the formal and institutional supports should be introduced.