Female Labor Force Participation and Informal Care of Adults: Evidence for a middle-income country

Abstract

The provision of elderly care is an issue of increasing importance in Latin American countries because of a aging population, decrease in household size, and increased complexity of care. Thus, it is important to analyze how the provision of informal care of other adults affects the welfare of women since they are usually responsible for this type of care. We analyze in this paper the relationship between providing informal care to adults and labor outcomes for a middle-income country with a rapidly aging population. This is one of the first studies to focus on middle-income countries and in Latin America. The results of this research show the importance of considering the endogeneity that exists between informal care and female labor participation. A partial correlation analysis shows a strong negative relationship between providing care and labor participation, however, when we use methods for endogeneity correction, the correlation does not hold. Additionally, we found that poor households are more likely to be involved in care giving activities, and that the presence of a spouse reduces the likelihood of provision of care.