Socio-Economic Predictors of Hiring Live-In Migrant Care Workers to Support Community Dwelling Older Adults with Long-Term Care Needs: Recent Evidence from a Central Italian Region

Oliver Fisher, Paolo Fabbietti and Giovanni Lamura
Additional contact information
Oliver Fisher: Centre for Socio-Economic Research on Ageing, IRCCS INRCA-National Institute of Health and Science on Ageing, 60124 Ancona, Italy
Paolo Fabbietti: Unit of Geriatric Pharmacoepidemiology, IRCCS INRCA-National Institute of Health and Science on Ageing, 60124 Ancona, Italy
Giovanni Lamura: Centre for Socio-Economic Research on Ageing, IRCCS INRCA-National Institute of Health and Science on Ageing, 60124 Ancona, Italy

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 10, 1-18

Abstract: To meet the rising demand for home care, many families in Italy hire live-in migrant care workers (MCWs). However, the reliance on MCWs to provide long-term care (LTC) and a lack of alternative formal care services raises concerns around equality in access to care. This study aimed to determine the socio-economic predictors of hiring live-in MCWs among older adults with LTC needs in Italy, the objective care burden placed on MCWs, and the financial barriers that people in need of care and informal caregivers face when hiring MCWs, analysing data from a cross-sectional questionnaire with 366 older adults with LTC needs and their primary family caregivers living in the Marche region. Binary logistic regression was used to calculate the predictors of hiring a live-in MCW. Having a primary caregiver that had a high school education or above significantly increased the odds of hiring a live-in MCW (Odds Ratio (OR) = 3.880), as did receiving a social pension (OR = 2.258). Over half (57.5 percent) of the people in need of care had difficulties in affording the costs of hiring an MCW in the past year. To increase the sustainability of the Italian MCW market and reduce socio-economic barriers to accessing care, the Italian Government should increase funding for LTC benefits and add means testing and restrictions on the use of cash-for-care allowances.

Keywords: home-care; Italy; migrant care work; long-term care (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/10/5349/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/10/5349/ (text/html)

Related works:
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:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:10:p:5349-:d:552107

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().