{"title":"Insuring Long-Term Care in Developing Countries: The Interaction between Formal and Informal Insurance","authors":"Jiayi Wen, Xiaoqing Yu","doi":"arxiv-2408.14243","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Does public insurance reduce uninsured long-term care (LTC) risks in\ndeveloping countries, where informal insurance predominates? This paper\nexploits the rollout of LTC insurance in China around 2016 to examine the\nimpact of public LTC insurance on healthy workers' labor supply, a critical\nself-insurance channel. We find that workers eligible for public LTC insurance\nwere less likely to engage in labor work and worked fewer weeks annually\nfollowing the policy change, suggesting a mitigation of uninsured risks.\nHowever, these impacts were insignificant among those with strong informal\ninsurance coverage. Parallel changes in anticipated formal care use corroborate\nthese findings. While our results reveal that public LTC insurance provides\nlimited additional risk-sharing when informal insurance predominates, they also\nunderscore its growing importance.","PeriodicalId":501273,"journal":{"name":"arXiv - ECON - General Economics","volume":"58 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2024-08-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"arXiv - ECON - General Economics","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/arxiv-2408.14243","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Does public insurance reduce uninsured long-term care (LTC) risks in
developing countries, where informal insurance predominates? This paper
exploits the rollout of LTC insurance in China around 2016 to examine the
impact of public LTC insurance on healthy workers' labor supply, a critical
self-insurance channel. We find that workers eligible for public LTC insurance
were less likely to engage in labor work and worked fewer weeks annually
following the policy change, suggesting a mitigation of uninsured risks.
However, these impacts were insignificant among those with strong informal
insurance coverage. Parallel changes in anticipated formal care use corroborate
these findings. While our results reveal that public LTC insurance provides
limited additional risk-sharing when informal insurance predominates, they also
underscore its growing importance.