Evaluations based on the Socio-Economic Panel: Nursing relatives in Germany

Once again, it has been shown that women care more frequently and to a greater extent than men. In addition, there are differences between age groups: People aged under 30 barely maintained care in 2012, relatives, who cared, were mainly aged above 30. However, over-60s spent more time on care on average.

There are no major differences between income and wealth groups in deciding whether care is taken or not. On the other hand, there are differences in terms of the amount of care provided. In terms of income, they are less pronounced and different interpretations are possible. On the one hand, lower-income dependents may care to a greater extent because they cannot afford the support of a professional caregiver. On the other hand, an expansion of care work could be accompanied by a reduction in employment, especially for the group of those still in employment – income is correspondingly lower if a lot of care is provided. For this reason, the additional consideration of net wealth is interesting. In this case, the mean hours of care decrease with higher wealth, but not the share of people giving care. Cost motives could therefore be more clearly visible here than in the case of income.