title: 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.
authors.affiliation: University of Paderborn, RWI & CINCH, Germany. Electronic address: hendrik.schmitz@uni-paderborn.de.
authors.forename: Hendrik
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Schmitz
authors.affiliation: Ruhr Graduate School in Economics, University of Duisburg-Essen & CINCH, Germany.
authors.forename: Matthias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Westphal
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D017028:Caregivers / Q000523:psychology; D036262:Empirical Research; D005260:Female; D005858:Germany; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008603:Mental Health; D008875:Middle Aged; D057216:Propensity Score; D012044:Regression Analysis; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
keywords: Informal care; Mental health; Physical health; Propensity score matching; Regression adjusted matching