The labour market costs of community care

This paper reports an empirical investigation into the influence of informal care responsibilities on the labour supply of women. The objective is to examine the argument that the UK policy of caring for the chronic sick 'in the community' involves a nontrivial opportunity cost in the form of the forgone labour supply of the informal carers upon which it relies. We find that informal carers who care for less than 20 h per week are, in fact, more likely to participate in the labour market, but tend to work for fewer hours per week than otherwise similar noncarers. Informal carers who care for 20 h or more a week are less Likely to participate, but only slightly. However, when they do undertake formal employment, they tend to earn less per hour and work for fewer hours per week. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.