{"title":"Does long-term care insurance affect labor supply? Empirical evidence from China.","authors":"Hongwang Guo, Xinrui Wu, Ziming Liu","doi":"10.1007/s10754-026-09421-1","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This paper investigates the effects of exposure to the long-term care insurance (LTCI) on labor supply of the middle-aged and older adult in China, using data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study from 2011 to 2018. We address the potential endogeneity of LTCI exposure with the difference-in-differences estimator. The results indicate that LTCI exposure has negative impacts on labor supply. Respondents in the pilot cities with LTCI reduce approximately 1.984 working hours per week. They also tend to have a 3.9% lower probability of working. In particular, the proportion of respondents in pilot cities engage in informal work increased by 1.6%. The impacts of LTCI exposure on labor supply are particularly pronounced for caregivers and respondents with functional limitations. The expected income effect seems to be the suggestive mechanism through which LTCI exposure affects labor supply. Our results highlight the spillover effects of LTCI in aging societies.</p>","PeriodicalId":44403,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Health Economics and Management","volume":"26 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.5000,"publicationDate":"2026-08-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"International Journal of Health Economics and Management","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10754-026-09421-1","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"BUSINESS, FINANCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
This paper investigates the effects of exposure to the long-term care insurance (LTCI) on labor supply of the middle-aged and older adult in China, using data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study from 2011 to 2018. We address the potential endogeneity of LTCI exposure with the difference-in-differences estimator. The results indicate that LTCI exposure has negative impacts on labor supply. Respondents in the pilot cities with LTCI reduce approximately 1.984 working hours per week. They also tend to have a 3.9% lower probability of working. In particular, the proportion of respondents in pilot cities engage in informal work increased by 1.6%. The impacts of LTCI exposure on labor supply are particularly pronounced for caregivers and respondents with functional limitations. The expected income effect seems to be the suggestive mechanism through which LTCI exposure affects labor supply. Our results highlight the spillover effects of LTCI in aging societies.
期刊介绍:
The focus of the International Journal of Health Economics and Management is on health care systems and on the behavior of consumers, patients, and providers of such services. The links among management, public policy, payment, and performance are core topics of the relaunched journal. The demand for health care and its cost remain central concerns. Even as medical innovation allows providers to improve the lives of their patients, questions remain about how to efficiently deliver health care services, how to pay for it, and who should pay for it. These are central questions facing innovators, providers, and payers in the public and private sectors. One key to answering these questions is to understand how people choose among alternative arrangements, either in markets or through the political process. The choices made by healthcare managers concerning the organization and production of that care are also crucial. There is an important connection between the management of a health care system and its economic performance. The primary audience for this journal will be health economists and researchers in health management, along with the larger group of health services researchers. In addition, research and policy analysis reported in the journal should be of interest to health care providers, managers and policymakers, who need to know about the pressures facing insurers and governments, with consequences for regulation and mandates. The editors of the journal encourage submissions that analyze the behavior and interaction of the actors in health care, viz. consumers, providers, insurers, and governments. Preference will be given to contributions that combine theoretical with empirical work, evaluate conflicting findings, present new information, or compare experiences between countries and jurisdictions. In addition to conventional research articles, the journal will include specific subsections for shorter concise research findings and cont ributions to management and policy that provide important descriptive data or arguments about what policies follow from research findings. The composition of the editorial board is designed to cover the range of interest among economics and management researchers.Officially cited as: Int J Health Econ ManagFrom 2001 to 2014 the journal was published as International Journal of Health Care Finance and Economics. (Articles published in Vol. 1-14 officially cited as: Int J Health Care Finance Econ)