As the demography ages, the demand for family care is expected to rise rapidly in the United States. Due to lower access to quality formal care and differences in norms and traditions, minority populations rely more heavily on family caregiving and at a higher intensity. Despite the growing diversity in the demography of older population and the urgency for demand for family care, we know very little about the racial and ethnic differences in family caregiving patterns over the long-run and its impact on the economic outcomes of minority caregivers.
My study intends to fill this gap in two parts. First, I document the rate, intensity, and duration of family caregiving by adult children across racial and ethnic groups, using a longitudinal data spanning over roughly two decades. Second, I study the effect of caregiving on the propensity of employment and earning high income among adult children using an instrumental variable analysis and examine the differences across racial and ethnic groups.