 Dual Caregiving, Declining Birth Rate, and Economic SustainabilityQuang-Thanh Tran and Akiomi Kitagawa No 77, TUPD Discussion Papers from Graduate School of Economics and Management, Tohoku University Abstract: This paper employs an overlapping generations model to analyze how placing the burden of caring for both elderly parents and children on the working generation shapes fertility and other economic outcomes. In themodel, fertility decisions create intergenerational spillovers. When one generation has fewer children, the next generation faces a heavier caregiving burden for its elderly parents, which in turn discourages childbearing. The model reveals sharply different long-run trajectories depending on the time intensity of caregiving. If care demands are moderate, sustainable growth remains feasible despite these externalities. However, when care becomes highly time-intensive, fertility declines, labor supply contracts, and the economy risks falling into a "nursing hell," where most time is devoted to caregiving. Policy measures, such as child allowances, can alleviate this dynamic by expanding the number of siblings and reducing the per-capita caregiving burden. Yet if care demands are extremely high from the outset, even such interventions cannot avert structural collapse. Pages: 38 pages Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:toh:tupdaa:77 Access Statistics for this paper More papers in TUPD Discussion Papers from Graduate School of Economics and Management, Tohoku University Contact information at EDIRC. |
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