Modelling social care provision in an agent-based framework with kinship networks

Abstract

Current demographic trends in the UK include a fast-growing elderly population and dropping birth rates, and demand for social care among the aged is rising. The UK depends on informal social care—family members or friends providing care—for some 50% of care provision. However, lower birth rates and a greying population mean that care availability is becoming a significant problem, causing concern among policy-makers that substantial public investment in formal care will be required in decades to come. In this paper, we present an agent-based simulation of care provision in the UK, in which individual agents can decide to provide informal care, or pay for private care, for their loved ones. Agents base these decisions on factors including their own health, employment status, financial resources, relationship to the individual in need and geographical location. Results demonstrate that the model can produce similar patterns of care need and availability as are observed in the real world, despite the model containing minimal empirical data. We propose that our model better captures the complexities of social care provision than other methods, due to the socioeconomic details present and the use of kinship networks to distribute care among family members.

Social and child care provision in kinship networks: An agent-based model

“…This paper expands upon our previous efforts to model informal social care using agent-based modelling techniques [16,17]. Following those previous projects, we consulted with social care experts, and were advised that child care commitments can create challenges for families faced with significant adult social care demand.…”

“…The model we present in this paper is an offshoot of the Linked Lives model presented in Silverman et al [16], further extended in Gostoli and Silverman [17] where the following features were introduced: socio-economic status (SES) groups; kinship networks; relocation's decisionmaking; formal (i.e. privately paid-for) care; public social care; a salary function; and hospitalization probabilities (which depend positively on levels of unmet care need).…”

“…privately paid-for) care; public social care; a salary function; and hospitalization probabilities (which depend positively on levels of unmet care need). We provide very brief summaries of the 2019 additions of SES, kinship networks, the salary function, formal and public care provision aspects here, and refer the reader to Gostoli and Silverman [ 17 ] for more details. Subsequently we will describe the enhancements made to the current version in full.…”

“…Agents are placed in one of five socioeconomic status groups (SES groups), based on the Approximated Social Grade from the Office for National Statistics. These groups were redistributed as in Gostoli and Silverman [ 17 ]. Each SES group is associated with an education level.…”

“…Our previous work has explored social care provision and policy solutions using ABMs [15][16][17]. Social care is not a frequent topic for modelling, and to our knowledge only one other agent-based simulation explicitly including informal and formal social care has been published besides our own work: an examination of the impact of demographic change on formal and informal care in Spain [21].…”