Who Works Less when a Parent Needs Long-Term Care? Gender Disparities in Labor Market Effects in Mexico

We use longitudinal data from the Mexican Health and Aging Study to analyze the effect of having a parent in need of long-term care on labor supply of men and women aged 50–64 in Mexico. After accounting for both individual and time fixed effects, we find that parents’ need of long-term care is associated with both a significant drop in the likelihood of working (by 2.42 percentage points), and a reduction in the number of hours worked (by 7.3%) among women who remain employed. In contrast, we find no effect on the labor supply of men. In a context of rapid population aging, the increase in the need of long-term care risks to hinder the efforts to reduce gender imbalances in the labor market. JEL Classification. I38, J14, J16, J18, J21, J22.