Family Care and the Utilization of Medical Services of Elderly in China: Complementary or Substitutive?

Abstract

This paper uses the data of four-phase CHARLS (2011-2018). It adopts binary selection models with fixed effect and instrumental variables, studying the influence of family care on outpatient and inpatient medical services for the elderly in China and its heterogeneous effect. There are two main findings: Firstly, with the endogeneity considered, family care is significantly complementary to medical service utilization, increasing the outpatient and inpatient probabilities of the elderly by 10.5% and 36.5%, respectively; Secondly, when the elderly reach a particular age group (75 and above), the deterioration of physical function caused by increasing age may weaken the impact of family care, the complementarity is significantly weakened to insignificant. In short, increasing the supply of care for the elderly expands the service boundaries of medical institutions. It forms an integrated and complete service system for medical and elderly care and will have a vital improvement in the medical system to better cope with the context of aging.