LATEBREAKER
Health Services/Policy
Depends on whom you ask: discrepancies in reporting spousal care between women and men across European welfare states Afshin Vafaei* Afshin Vafaei Ricardo Rodrigues Cassandra Simmons Eszter Zólyomi Johan Rehnberg Selma Kadi Marco Socci Stefan Fors Susan P. Phillips
Current research on determinants, prevalence and effects of informal care on health and other outcomes assumes that survey instruments are able to appropriately identify informal carers. We aim to investigate systematic differences across Europe in reporting spousal care between caregivers and cared-for persons and their possible effects for the analysis of care regimes and correlation of informal care with health. Using information on care provided/received from the Survey on Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), we estimate prevalence rates of spousal care and discordance rate between caregivers and cared-for persons in the reporting of care among caregiving dyads. Multinomial regressions are used to estimate systematic differences in reporting spousal care. We then use multivariate logistic regressions to assess the effect of discordance in reporting informal care on the correlation of care with poor self-rated health and depression using the EURO-D scale. Results show that only 53.9% of dyads report care that is confirmed by both spouses. Multinomial regressions show that agreement on care being provided/received is more common when women are caregivers, while men are likely to underreport when providing or receiving personal care. Prevalence rates of spousal care across care regimes is sensitive to who reports care although their ranking remains unchanged. There is no effect on the association of care with SRH regardless of who is asked to identify the carer, while the magnitude and direction of the association between depression symptoms and care varies according to the choice of respondent. Possible explanations for the discordance found include social norms dictating gender roles and acceptability of men as carers. Relying on self-identification of carers as most surveys do or to access social benefits has the potential to underestimate their numbers.