Jeroen Spijker (Centre d'Estudis Demogràfics)
In this seminar, Spijker will first briefly describe recent changes in care arrangements and carers’ characteristics. Then he’ll show, based on a recently developed model, how demographic and socioeconomic change has been shaping the care needs and supply of informal carers for the Spanish population aged 50+ for cohorts born between 1908 and 1968. Regarding the former, there is evidence that informal care is being externalised from the domestic domain through more multiple care arrangements (e.g. formal combined with informal). With respect to the latter, their model results show that the family care deficit was actually greater in the older cohorts due to higher mortality and thus a greater impact of widowhood. However, for future older persons, they foresee that persistent below-replacement fertility and, paradoxically, the prolongation of the lifespan of couples will increase the demand for formal care as there will be more couples with both members incapacitated but without children to take care of them.