Does Work Affect Adult Children’s Informal Care Supply? Evidence from the Great Recession

In the United States, adult children provide half of the total informal care hours. Most adult children are at working age and face a tradeoff between work and informal caregiving. Government policies allow adult children to take leave while keeping their health benefits or even a high percentage of income when aging parents need their care. Yet only a few studies have examined whether or not less work leads to more informal care provision.  In this study, I use the rise in unemployment during the Great Recession as an exogenous shock to study work’s effects on adult children’s informal care supply. Fixed effects logit models are estimated using Health and Retirement Study (HRS) 2006-2010 data. Results show that one percent increase in unemployment rates increases the odds of informal care provision by 0.14 (P = 0.000). Therefore, policy interventions that reduce adult children’s work time can increase their informal care supply.