Who came to the rescue? Sources of informal support to older Europeans before, during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Background/objective: The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the provision of informal care in major ways. This study documents the prevalences of informal support with (instrumental) activities of daily living (IADL and ADL) before, during and after the pandemic, distinguishing between children, other relatives and friends/neighbours and focusing on individuals 50 years and older across 27 European countries.

Methods: This longitudinal analysis relies on the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE)'s Wave 8 (2019), two Corona surveys (2020 and 2021) and Wave 9 (2022). Linear probability models adjusted for individual fixed effects and time-varying confounders were used to estimate prevalences of informal support over time.

Results: During the pandemic, the prevalences of informal support with both IADL and ADL from all three groups of caregivers increased significantly (P < 0.01), to return to their pre-pandemic levels by 2022. For example, the adjusted likelihood of IADL help from children increased from 18.5% (2019) to 36.6% (2020) and 42.5% (2021), then dropped back to 19.7% in 2022. Friends and neighbours played a critical role, with the adjusted likelihood of IADL help going from 8.8% (2019) to 29.7% (2020), then down to 18% (2021) and 8.9% (2022).

Conclusions: Future emergency and disaster preparedness plans should contemplate the various sources of informal care, including support measures to non-relative caregivers, as those helpers may be able to rapidly respond to unexpected crisis.