How Much Long-Term Care do Adult Children Provide?

As people age and their health starts to deteriorate, their need for help in daily life increases. Cost concerns and personal preferences lead many people to turn to informal care from family members, particularly children. While formal care has a clear monetary cost, the burdens of informal care are harder to pin down. This brief, by Gal Wettstein and Alice Zulkarnain of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, uses the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) to estimate how many adult children provide care to their parents and the extent of their caregiving burden.

The brief’s first section presents data on the need for care among the elderly and on how much care is provided by adult children. The second section synthesizes recent research on the burden of care provision borne by adult children. The final section concludes that while only a moderate share of adult children provide care for their parents, those who do so contribute a lot of time and effort.

To view the brief, click here: http://bit.ly/2t4Cfhx