Does home care for dependent elderly people improve their mental health?

Thomas Barnay () and Sandrine Juin

Journal of Health Economics, 2016, vol. 45, issue C, 149-160

Abstract: While theoretical models on long-term care decisions assume that the health production function of dependent elderly depends positively on the care received, it has not received much attention in the empirical literature. We estimate the effects of both informal and formal home care on the mental health of elderly individuals in France needing help with daily activities. We adjust for the endogeneity of care with instrumental variables, using characteristics of adult children and geographical disparities in access to public long-term care coverage. The results show that informal care reduces the risk of depression of dependent elderly and that formal care increases their general mental health.

Keywords: Long-term care; Health production; Informal care; Formal care; Mental health (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C36 D13 I12 J14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (32)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167629615001204
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Does home care for dependent elderly people improve their mental health? (2016)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jhecon:v:45:y:2016:i:c:p:149-160

DOI: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2015.10.008

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Health Economics is currently edited by J. P. Newhouse, A. J. Culyer, R. Frank, K. Claxton and T. McGuire

More articles in Journal of Health Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().