Characteristics and Determinants of Intergenerational Financial Transfers Within Families Using Mixed Care for Elderly People

Abstract

The provision of care to dependent elderly parents or parents-in-
-law is an important part of intergenerational exchange within
families, especially in countries where the long-term care system
is based predominantly on family care. However, in mixed-care
networks, care tasks are shared between family members and
formal carers. Additionally, adult children may need to financially
help their parents, especially due to the financial burden that
formal care places on the elderly. We used the Slovenian national
survey of social home care users and their family members,
collected in 2013, to observe the characteristics and determinants
of intergenerational financial transfers in families that use mixed
care, within dyads comprising a care recipient and a family
caregiver. The findings show that there is a considerable
proportion of financial exchange among the observed dyads.
Furthermore, among the determinants, the income of the elderly
person and amount of care received are important for financial
flows upward (to the elderly parent) and downward (from the
elderly parent). The concurrent flows differ; their main
determinants are the carer's age, household size and education.