In this paper, we analyze the determinants of the living arrangements of elderly parents and their children (whether elderly parents live with their children, and if so, with which child) in Japan using micro data from a household survey. We find that the proportion of elderly parents living with their eldest sons is much higher than that of elderly parents living with children other than the eldest son, even if the eldest son is not the eldest child. Moreover, we find that elderly parents are more likely to live with their eldest sons if the father was a self-employed worker before retirement, whereas they are more likely to live with a child other than the eldest son if the father was an executive before retirement. In addition, daughters whose husbands adopt the daughter's surname are more likely to live with the daughter's parents. All of these findings are consistent with the dynasty and/or strategic bequest (selfish life cycle) models. We also find that the living arrangements of elderly parents are still very much based on Japanese social norms and traditions. Thus, we find support for all models of household behavior other than the altruism model.
In this paper, we analyze the determinants of the living arrangements of elderly parents and their children (whether elderly parents live with their children, and if so, with which child) in Japan using micro data from a household survey. We find that the proportion of elderly parents living with their eldest sons is much higher than that of elderly parents living with children other than the eldest son, even if the eldest son is not the eldest child. Moreover, we find that elderly parents are more likely to live with their eldest sons if the father was a self-employed worker before retirement, whereas they are more likely to live with a child other than the eldest son if the father was an executive before retirement. In addition, daughters whose husbands adopt the daughter's surname are more likely to live with the daughter's parents. All of these findings are consistent with the dynasty and/or strategic bequest (selfish life cycle) models. We also find that the living arrangements of elderly parents are still very much based on Japanese social norms and traditions. Thus, we find support for all models of household behavior other than the altruism model.
We analyze whether or not informal family caregiving worsens caregivers’ health and life satisfaction among Japanese married middle‐aged and elderly individuals from the Japanese Study of Aging and Retirement. Unlike previous studies, we distinguish between wives and husbands as caregivers and between one's own and one's spouse's parents as care recipients. We find women's depressive state is negatively associated with caregiving for spousal parents both in our instrumental variable estimations and fixed‐effect panel analysis, and also find women's life satisfaction is negatively associated with caregiving for spousal parents in our fixed‐effect panel analysis, though only marginally so. However, as our results are marginally significant, caregiving for either own or spousal parents does not seem to matter much for caregiver's health or life satisfaction. All that can be said for certain in our paper is that men's subjective health, depressive state, and life satisfaction are generally less sensitive to informal care, for both spousal and own parents, than that of women.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.