Decomposition of Informal Care Supply Variation across Europe

Given the growing proportion of the elderly in the populations of Europe that affects organization and funding of long-term care, the availability of informal caregivers becomes increasingly important. It has been established that there exists a great variation across Europe in the proportion of people who provide some kind of informal care. Using comparable data across Europe, we examine the sources of this variation. We found a North – South gradient in the percentage of population providing informal care across Europe for three of the four types of informal care we analyzed. We then decomposed the difference between North and South clusters of countries and found that the differences are not mainly the result of differences in population characteristics but rather derive from differences in the effects of these characteristics that are associated with cultural and institutional differences. The detailed decomposition further reveals where particular policies can be targeted to increase the share of care provided by informal caregivers.