The effects of marital and parental status on informal support and service utilization: A study of older Swedes living alone

Determinants of home-based formal help in community-dwelling older people in Finland

“…We found that increasing age and increasing limitations in mobility and in IADL were associated with use of formal care after adjustment for other indicators of functional capacity. No independent effects of PADL were found, a result consistent with those obtained previously from Swedish data (Larsson and Thorslund 2002;Larsson and Silverstein 2004). The effects of cognitive ability were less clear, as only those with fairly good cognitive ability had increased odds compared to those with the best ability.…”

“…There may also be differences in care preferences between the socioeconomic groups (Andersen 1995;Larsson and Silverstein 2004;Davey et al 2005;Broese van Groenou et al 2006). Our results showed that even in the Finnish context of a universal welfare system, some indication of a positive association between high income and greater use of services may be observed.…”

“…Empirical evidence has shown that living with someone (most often with the spouse), rather than marital status as such, has been found to reduce the use of formal services, and living alone predicts higher use of services (Bowling et al 1991;Cafferata 1987;Tennstedt et al 1990). Having no children has been found to increase the probability of using public home help services and the number of hours of formal care among the home-dwelling older people (Lafreniere et al 2003;Larsson and Silverstein 2004), although there is also conflicting evidence on the role of children: Choi (1994) found that childless older persons did not differ from those having children in use of services. Less research has been undertaken on the effects of receiving help from other specified sources of informal help, such as other relatives, friends and neighbors, and the evidence presented to date is mixed.…”

“…Choi (1994) found that having friends decreased the use of social services but that the number of siblings, or having relatives, had no effect on service use. According to the results of Larsson and Silverstein (2004), frequent contacts with friends were associated with the lesser use of formal care. In contrast, Logan and Spitze (1994) found that receiving help from friends was positively associated with the use of services, but their study also found that help from other relatives or neighbors was of no importance.…”

Childlessness and Intergenerational Transfers in Later Life

“…Given the constraints on welfare state spending, it is possible that this additional demand will not be met, and that childless older people will have to look to the private market for alternative solutions. Even in an advanced welfare state such as Sweden, public home help services have not been able to fully compensate for the lack of family support among the childless (Larsson and Silverstein 2004).…”