The second move and the welfare state: how do long-term care arrangements shape older adults’ residential relocations?

Thijs van den Broek, Erasmus University Rotterdam
Pearl Dykstra, Erasmus University Rotterdam
Niels Schenk, Erasmus University Rotterdam

Many scholars have conducted studies on how formal long-term care arrangements shape the care and help adult children provide to impaired older adults. These studies typically show that, after controlling for the geographical distance between parent and child, adult children are less likely to provide care and more likely to provide practical help to impaired parents when formal long-term care arrangements are more generous. Research consistently shows that children who live near their parents are more likely to provide instrumental support than children who live farther away. Particularly co-resident children are likely to provide care. The geographical distance between an impaired parent and an adult child is not exogenous to the former’s need for care, however. In this paper, we intend to assess how the association between older parents’ need for care and residential relocations is shaped by formal long-term care arrangements. We intend to use Dutch register data to test our hypotheses that older adults' care need driven transitions to coresidence with children are less likely when residential care arrangements are more generous (H1) and when the older adult receives formal home care (H2).