This paper estimates the causal effect of informal care provided by children on health outcomes for nursing home residents. We exploit the cross-sectional French survey CARE-Institutions (2016) providing a representative sample of 2,382 residents aged 60 or more, with children. Adverse health outcomes are depression, sleep disorders, poor appetite, and feelings of weariness. To deal with the endogeneity of informal care, we exploit an instrumental variable strategy where informal care receipt is instrumented by the gender composition of siblings. Informal care is found to have overall little effect on these health outcomes, and this is stable across gender and education level. These results are contrasting with those observed at home and call for further researches on the specific determinants of health and well-being in nursing homes.

Citation: Roquebert, Q. (2024). The Effect of Informal Care Provided by Children on Health in Nursing Homes. Economie et Statistique / Economics and Statistics, 542, 125–145. doi: 10.24187/ecostat.2024.542.2114