The Effects of Incidence of Care Needs in Households on Employment, Subjective Health, and Life Satisfaction among Middle‐aged Family Members
| Published date | 01 November 2015 |
| Date | 01 November 2015 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/sjpe.12085 |
THE EFFECTS OF INCIDENCE OF CARE
NEEDS IN HOUSEHOLDS ON EMPLOY-
MENT, SUBJECTIVE HEALTH, AND
LIFE SATISFACTION AMONG MIDDLE-
AGED FAMILY MEMBERS
Ryotaro Fukahori*, Tadashi Sakai** and Kazuma Sato***
ABSTRACT
In this study, based on longitudinal data, we investigate whether Japanese mid-
dle-aged men and women become less likely to have a job and whether their
sense of well-being decreases when they have a family member who needs care.
We find a consistent negative impact of having a family member who needs care
on employment, but no impact on subjective health and life satisfaction. Further,
the differences-in-differences (DID) estimation, based on both unmatched and
matched data, shows that the Long-Term Care Insurance (LTCI) introduced in
2000 did not mitigate the adverse impact on the probability of being employed.
II
NTRODUCTION
Currently, Japan is undergoing unprecedentedly rapid population aging. With
this pace of population aging, it is expected that the number of elderly people
who need care will increase dramatically in the near future. Nevertheless, pro-
viding care to frail elderly people is still considered one of the primary roles
of family members.
1
A long-standing concern of the Japanese government fac-
ing a shrinking working-age population is that this caregiving responsibility
may affect employment and, consequently, reduce the labor force participation
rate at the national level. One of the initial objectives of Long-Term Care
Insurance (hereafter LTCI) introduced in 2000 was ‘to socialize care,’ that is,
to shift the burden of caregiving from the family to society (Campbell and
Ikegami, 2000). It aimed at encouraging the labor force participation of family
members who would otherwise become main caregivers, by promoting the
entry of new service providers. However, it is still unclear whether an individ-
*Kanazawa Gakuin University
**Hosei University
***Meikai University
1
In particular, it is often considered the responsibility of women. According to the 2010
Comprehensive Survey of People’s Living Conditions (Kokumin Seikatsu Kiso Chosa),
approximately 70% of co-resident caregivers are women.
Scottish Journal of Political Economy, DOI: 10.1111/sjpe.12085, Vol. 62, No. 5, November 2015
©2015 Scottish Economic Society.
518
ual actually becomes less likely to have a job when he/she has a family mem-
ber who needs care and whether the introduction of LTCI alleviated the bur-
den of caregiving on family members.
An impediment to measuring the impact of having a family member who
needs care is that taking on the burden of care may be the result of self-selec-
tion. For example, if a family member who does not like to remain in a job
simultaneously tends to take on the burden of care, a bias arises in a na
€
ıve
comparison of a caregiver’s probability of working with that of a non-care-
giver since researchers are unable to observe this tendency. For assessing the
causal relationship between caregiving and employment, panel data would
help mitigate this bias by eliminating such confounding unobservable factors.
Another aspect of need for care that we should note when analyzing its
impact on various outcomes is the timing of the incidence of the need for
caregiving. It is usually individuals who are in their late middle age or older
who have a family member, usually a parent, who is in need of care, which
corresponds to a time when such individuals begin thinking about their own
retirement. According to the Employment Status Survey (Shugyo Kozo Kihon
Chosa), among those who left their previous job within the past year, only
1.2% of men and 3.8% of women cite ‘caring for an aged or sick family mem-
ber’ as a reason for quitting their previous job. However, among those aged
between 50 and 59, the percentages increase to 4% for men and 13% for
women, which are much higher than the percentages for other ages. Thus, to
analyze the effect of the incidence of care need, we require data that give
details of the lives of individuals who are in their middle age or older. More-
over, the data must also include the periods both before and after the year
2000 to evaluate the effect of the introduction of LTCI.
In this study, we investigate whether those individuals who have a family
member in need of care are less likely to have a job on the basis of a unique
Japanese panel survey on middle-aged men and women, which has been con-
ducted since before LTCI was introduced. We depend on a variable that indi-
cates whether an individual is living with a family member who needs care,
instead of a variable indicating whether that individual is a caregiver, which is
usually used in analysis. Using this variable, irrespective of whether the person
is the main caregiver, we examine the effect of the incidence of need for care
in the family on the respondent’s working decision. We also examine the
impact of having a family member who needs care on the respondent’s subjec-
tive measures of health and life satisfaction. To the best of our knowledge, no
previous analysis has measured the effect of LTCI of Japan on employment
of those who have a person who needs care in the family, based on a longitu-
dinal survey, except Shimizutani et al. (2008) and our previous analysis –
Sakai and Sato (2007). In this study, we utilize a data set that encompasses a
longer period before and after the introduction of LTCI than the above two
studies do. While the abovementioned two studies do not examine well-being
–that is, health and life satisfaction –this study does.
The results of our analysis reveal that both husbands and wives that have a
family member who needs care are less likely by 7–10% to participate in the
THE EFFECTS OF INCIDENCE OF CARE NEEDS IN HOUSEHOLDS 519
Scottish Journal of Political Economy
©2015 Scottish Economic Society
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