Informal Care in the Home and in Nursing Homes: Determinants, Monetary Value, and Implications for Sharing the Costs of Dependency

Informal care – help provided by relatives and friends, essentially unpaid – plays a key role in helping older people with the loss of autonomy. Basing itself on recent studies, this article describes the informal care provided to seniors in France at home, but also in nursing homes, particularly by analyzing what factors are associated with receiving informal care. It also proposes measuring the monetary value of this help with everyday activities, which makes it possible to include it in the costs incurred by households to deal with the costs of dependency. The results show that the informal care systems are different for those living at home or in nursing homes. The profiles of those two populations also differ. Including informal care helps to better understand dependency costs, especially the part borne by households.