Short- and medium-term effects of informal care provision on female caregivers’ health

Abstract

In this paper, we present estimates of the effect of informal care provision on female caregivers’ health. We use data from the German Socio-Economic Panel and assess effects up to seven years after care provision. The results suggest that there is a considerable negative short-term effect of informal care provision on mental health which fades out over time. Five years after care provision the effect is still negative but smaller and insignificant. Both short- and medium-term effects on physical health are virtually zero throughout. A simulation analysis is used to assess the sensitivity of the results with respect to potential deviations from the conditional independence assumption in the regression adjusted matching approach.