1,720,981 research outputs found
Is caring for older parents detrimental to women’s mental health? The role of the European North–South gradient
No full textIn the last decades, both the lengthening of life expectancy and an
accentuated decline in birth rates have reduced the consistency of the younger
generational cohorts. Due to an ageing population, the burden of caregiving is
expected to intensify in the next quarter of the century in Europe, especially for
mature women. This paper investigates the impact of the provision of constant care
for older parents on the mental health of adult daughters, between the ages of 50 and
75, living in different European countries. Data is drawn from the Survey of Health,
Ageing and Retirement in Europe. Information on mental health status is provided
by Euro-D depression scale, a measure of depression standardized across European
countries. We focus on differences in the effects according to the North–South
gradient: we test whether the relationship between informal caregiving and mental
health differs across European macro-regions. Our results, robust under different
specifications of the propensity score model, reveal a clear North–South gradient:
the provision of informal care has a negative and significant impact on daughters’
mental health in the Mediterranean countries only, where the amount of resources
allocated to the Long Term Care is minimal and the local system of health and
social services for the elderly lacks the necessary structures to meet the increasing
demand for eldercare
Invecchiamento della popolazione e cure formali e informali: il gradiente Nord-Sud Europa
No full textOver the past few decades in Europe, and particularly in Italy, progressive ageing of the population has been recorded. This is due to two parallel phenomena: an increase in life expectancy and a declining birth rate. The growing need of elderly care has been faced by European countries with different strategies that follow a North-South gradient and stem from social, cultural, religious and institutional factors (Esping Anderson, 1990, Bettio and Plantenga 2004, Reher, 1998; EOP, 2010).
In particular European countries from the Mediterranean basin, including Italy, rely on “family centred” models of welfare, where historically the family has shouldered the burden of looking after its older parents, both financially and in terms of assistance. Similarly, it is still the family that supports the new generations facing the lack of job opportunities, even if these generations have already left the family nucleus, in a reciprocal pact that reflects the structural absence of institutional answers (Billari, 2004). In northern Europe prevails a “non family centred” model: here, for the past few decades, elderly care has been managed through reforms that involve institutions taking charge of those who are not self-sufficient. The need of care is satisfied by the public sector, mainly through the supply of formal services (care provided to the elderly by paid and qualified personnel) and, residually, through the financial support of activities by informal caregivers (care provided for free by relatives, neighbours, friends). There is a North-South gradient across Europe in the distribution of formal/informal care for the elderly population: in northern Europe, the elderly over 80 who are not self-sufficient receive formal assistance in 82% of the cases; whereas the figure drops to 28% when one takes southern European countries into consideration. Vice-versa, nine elderly people out of ten receive informal care in Mediterranean countries and the said figure drops lower and lower the more one moves northwards in Europe (see Figure 2).
In the majority of cases, the family member who cares for the elderly is female since women are regarded as better suited to taking on home and family responsibilities. Moreover, amongst women, daughters are those who are most represented in the role of caregiver to parents over 80. And hence the term “sandwich generation” describing a generation of adults, and of women in particular, who are engaged on two fronts as caregivers for their elderly parents and for their children or grandchildren who are still not self-sufficient. Providing continuing care to one’s elderly parents may involve sacrifices in one’s career or leisure time, leading to risks of isolation or burnout suffered by the habitual caregiver. Particularly in the absence of a Long Term Care (LTC) network of services that might provide the caregiver with some support in the difficult assistance task. These are the results of a research conducted by Brenna and Di Novi (2015) on SHARE data. The study shows that caregiver daughters living in European Mediterranean countries, including Italy, have a 10% greater probability of suffering from mental disorders compared to their peers who do not provide care to their elderly parents. The figure increases when the care is of a particularly intensive nature (helping the elderly with their personal care, dressing and feeding them) and/or when the number of hours dedicated to care-giving increases on a weekly basis. Results are not significant for caregivers living in northern or central European countries, most probably as these countries rely on models of formal care supporting caregivers in their tasks. Indeed, while northern countries are characterised by generous and universal LTC systems, the percentage of resources addressed to LTC in southern European countries is on average very low. As a result, a woman living in northern Europe can freely choose to provide care to her parents more out of personal affection rather than actual necessity, as she is aware of the existence of an institutional support network. Whereas in Mediterranean countries there is no choice and hence a higher risk of isolation. Policies providing support to the caregiver, such as for example the possibility of receiving retribution for the time dedicated to one’s parents, or the establishment of “information desks” addressing the application for care of the elderly who are not self-sufficient, or even the activation of “respite care” offering a period of respite to the habitual caregiver who will temporarily be substituted by qualified personnel, should also be established in Italy in order to lessen the burden that family members taking care of an elderly relative are subjected to
Smoking inequality across genders and socio-economic positions. Evidence from Italian data
No full textThere has been a dearth of literature on smoking inequalities, in spite of its contribution to health inequalities. We exploit Italian individual-level data from repeated cross-sections of the annual household survey, “Aspects of Daily Life,” that was part of the Multipurpose Survey carried out by the Italian National Statistical Office (ISTAT) for the period 1999–2012 to identify the main socio-demographic characteristics that determine smoking inequalities. We use the Concentration Index to identify in which groups smoking is relatively more prevalent. We find that, among men, pro-rich inequality is driven by members of the lower socio-economic positions, while we observe the opposite for women. We encourage policymakers to address the issue of smoking inequalities, which the current policies have largely disregarded
The role of education in psychological response to adverse health shocks
No full textThe prevalence of common mental disorders is on the rise: in the last decade mental disorders have become one of the major contributors to the global burden of disease and the leading cause of disability worldwide. While the association between depressive symptoms and physical health has been the subject of many studies, little is known about the potential pathways through which physical health affects mental health and how this relationship varies across different socioeconomic groups. This study aims at investigating on the role that a higher educational level may have not only in protecting people from depressive and anxiety symptoms but also on its role in mediating the relationship between mental and physical health shocks. For the scope of our analysis, we relied on hospital administrative records collected from Liguria, a north-western Italian region. We evaluate the impact of education in protecting individuals from mental disorders when they experienced an adverse health event, such as severe hospitalization or an onset of a chronic condition. Our results suggest that among those who suffer from severe physical health issues, highly educated individuals are less likely to experience depressive and anxiety symptoms compared to those with a lower level of education, even though, in presence of an adverse health shock, the protecting role of education slightly decreases
Inequality of Opportunity in Accessing Maternal and Newborn Healthcare Services: Evidence from the Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey
No full textUnder-five mortality is known to be the result of a wide variety of inputs, among which the availability of maternal and child health services. However, their coverage and distribution, in low- and middle-income countries, continue to remain inadequate and characterized by significant inequalities. The main aim of this study is to investigate the causes of inequality in accessing the basic maternal and newborn healthcare services in Bangladesh. To this end, we use nationally representative cross-sectional data from the Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey (BDHS), 2014. Our study builds on the Human Opportunity Index (HOI), developed at the World Bank (in World development report: Equity and development, World Bank, Washington, 2006), which measures the total contribution of individual socioeconomic and demographic circumstances to inequality of opportunity in accessing basic services. Our findings reveal that a mother’s education, wealth index and place of residence, are closely associated with access to basic maternal and newborn healthcare services
Health and aging: The sustainability and equity trade-off
No full textThis special issue covers a broad spectrum of approaches to the aging process, including theoretical, empirical and experimental research and reflects recent developments in this much-needed research area.JRC.S.3 - Science for Modelling, Monitoring and Evaluation
The impact of informal and formal care disruption on older adults’ psychological distress during the COVID-19 pandemic in UK
No full textThis paper investigates how formal and informal caregiving disruptions-due to the U.K. government's non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) aimed at reducing transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus-may have affected the likelihood of psychological distress among older individuals. We model the association between disruption of formal and informal care and mental health of the elderly during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic using a recursive simultaneous - equation model for binary variables. Our findings reveal that public interventions, which are most essential for reducing the pandemic spread, influenced the provision of formal and informal care. The lack of adequate long-term care following the COVID-19 outbreak has also had negative repercussions on the psychological well-being of these adults
Online health information seeking behavior, healthcare access, and health status during exceptional times
No full textOnline health information seeking behavior (e-HISB) is becoming increasingly common and the trend has accelerated as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic when individuals strongly relied upon the Internet to stay informed by becoming exposed to a wider array of health information. Despite e-HISB having become a global trend, very few empirical investigations have analyzed its potential influence on healthcare access and individuals’ health status. In this paper, we try to fill this gap. We use data from the second SHARE Corona Survey, supplemented with data from the previous 8th wave of SHARE, and estimate a recursive model of e-HISB, healthcare access, and individuals’ health status that accounts for individuals’ unobserved heterogeneity. Our findings suggest that e-HISB can empower individuals to better understand health concerns, facilitating improved health condition management. However, e-HISB can also trigger a chain reaction, as navigating vast amonts of online health information can heighten fear and anxiety. This increased anxiety may lead to higher utilization of medical services, adversely affecting individuals' perceptions of their health
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