Effects of informal care on caregivers' labor market outcomes and health in South Korea

Abstract

This dissertation investigates the effects of informal care on caregiver's labor market outcomes and health in South Korea. Although dramatic demographic transitions in Asian countries have been well documented, less is known about working and caring lives of informal caregivers in this region. Embedded in traditional culture perpetuating family-centered elderly care, informal care still remains invisible as a policy issue. Using newly available microdata from the Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging, this dissertation not only fills the gap in the international literature but also provides evidence to inform current policy debates on elderly long-term care in South Korea. Studies on the two distinct but related outcomes address methodological issues by controlling for the potential endogeneity of informal care, by examining an extensive set of outcome measures, and by employing various functional forms of care intensity. Robust findings suggest negative effects of intensive caregiving on labor force participation, work hours, and wage rates for female caregivers but not for male caregivers. Furthermore, caregivers appear to experience negative mental and physical health outcomes. These findings suggest that informal caregiving is already an important economic and public health issue in South Korea even before the full effects of recent rapid population aging have appeared.