Household Size, Home Health Care, and Medical Expenditures

Timothy Halliday and Mijung Park ()
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Mijung Park: Department of Nursing, School of Nursing & Dental Hygiene, University of Hawaii at Manoa

No 200916, Working Papers from University of Hawaii at Manoa, Department of Economics

Abstract: We document a robust negative correlation in which residing in a larger family is associated with lower consumption of medical care ceteris paribus. For men, an additional household member is associated with between $659.69 and $1039.97 fewer expenditures on health care and, for women, the estimates range between $391.28 and $728.66. Using quantile regression, the magnitude of the coefficients on household size increases monotonically with the quantile of medical expenditure. If household size is a proxy for home health care then these results suggest that home health care substitutes for medical care obtained on the market and that the degree of substitution increases with one's consumption of medical care and by implication decreases with one's health status. Finally, we provide suggestive evidence that the relative generosity of coverage for home health care by MEDICARE vis-a-vis private insurance may induce a crowdout of family care-giving by home care obtained through professional agencies.

Keywords: household size; medical expenditure; family; care-giving (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 27 pages
Date: 2009-11-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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