Help from spouse and from children among older people with functional limitations: comparison of England and Finland

Abstract

Future increases in need of old-age care warrant research on receipt of informal care among older people in different policy and cultural contexts. Separating informal care into help provided by spouse and by children may shed more light on dynamics of informal help, important in alleviating the demands on the formal sector. Using nationally representative data from England and Finland, we performed logistic regression analyses to study receipt of help from spouse and children among community-dwelling persons aged 70+ years with functional limitations. In both countries, women and those with more functional limitations had higher odds of receiving spousal and filial help. In England – but not in Finland – those receiving formal public help had lower odds of receiving spousal help than those with no formal help. Those with low education received more filial help in England, but no association was found between formal and filial help. In Finland, the effect of education was not significant but those receiving formal help had higher odds of also receiving filial help. The results suggest that in a liberal market-led state, the role of children may be to help their parents living alone and with low financial resources. In the context of a generous welfare state, children may function more as active agents bridging the gap between their parents and formal services.

Spousal care-giving arrangements in Europe. The role of gender, socio-economic status and the welfare state

“…Moreover, the source of care supportformal services or informal helperswith whom spousal care-giving is shared or to whom care is outsourced might vary, too, with socioeconomic status. Care receivers with a higher socio-economic status have been shown to be less dependent on informal care (Arber and Ginn, 1992;Blomgren et al, 2011), as they are more likely to be able to pay for formal care services. In many European countries, even the publicly provided formal care partly needs to be paid 'out of pocket' by the care receiver or the number of care hours guaranteed are not sufficient for covering the care need.…”

Parental health limitations, caregiving and loneliness among women with widowed parents: longitudinal evidence from France

“…Shanas 1979). Consistent with this reasoning, Ha et al (2006) found that older persons’ dependency on their adult children grows with widowhood and Blomgren et al (2012), among others, have shown that ageing parents living with a spouse are markedly less likely to receive support from their adult children than their counterparts not living with a spouse (cf. Jacobs et al 2016; Van den Broek et al 2017).…”

“…Children may respond to parental health limitations by taking on support tasks (Blomgren et al 2012; Silverstein et al 2006; Van den Broek and Dykstra 2017). Although providing informal care can be rewarding (Cohen et al 2002; Habermann et al 2013), it can also be demanding and time consuming (Attias-Donfut 2001; Habermann et al 2013).…”

Residential care and care to community-dwelling parents: out-selection, in-selection and diffusion of responsibility

“…Several parent characteristics were included because they are known predictors of intergenerational care (Blomgren et al 2012; Brandt, Haberkern and Szydlik 2009; Haberkern and Szydlik 2010; Ogg and Renaut 2006). We included a dummy variable to distinguish mothers from fathers, as well as measures for the impaired parent's age and number of children.…”

“…As described earlier, Pickard (2012) and Ulmanen and Szebehely (2015) have suggested that the negative association between the availability of residential care and the provision of care to community-dwelling older individuals by their adult children may in part be mediated by the prevalence of severe care needs among community-dwelling individuals. It is well-established that adult children are more likely to provide care to parents when the latter's care needs are more severe (Blomgren et al 2012; Brandt, Haberkern and Szydlik 2009; Haberkern and Szydlik 2010; Ogg and Renaut 2006; Vlachantoni et al 2015). When beds in residential care settings are relatively widely available, particularly older adults with severe needs will more often be admitted to residential care settings, and thus be selected out of the community ( cf.…”