Long-term care at home and female work during the COVID-19 pandemic

•During COVID-19 pandemic, there was a clear reduction of adult daycare.•Daycare was not replaced by home care as the government encouraged.•Informal care by females partly replaced adult daycare. This study analyzes the impacts of COVID-19 on two elements: long-term care at home, which is available...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Health policy (Amsterdam) 2021-07, Vol.125 (7), p.859-868
Main Authors: Sugawara, Shinya, Nakamura, Jiro
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Caregivers - psychology
Coronaviruses
COVID-19
COVID-19 - epidemiology
COVID-19 - psychology
Day care
Female
Female working hours
Females
Home Care Services - statistics & numerical data
Home health care
Humans
Informal care
Japan
Long term health care
Long-Term Care
Long-term care at home
Male
Males
Pandemics
Regression analysis
SARS-CoV-2
Working hours
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Summary:•During COVID-19 pandemic, there was a clear reduction of adult daycare.•Daycare was not replaced by home care as the government encouraged.•Informal care by females partly replaced adult daycare. This study analyzes the impacts of COVID-19 on two elements: long-term care at home, which is available for care recipients who live in their own home, and working status in Japan. A regression analysis of municipality data reveals that the number of users of adult daycare is negatively correlated to COVID-19, both nationally and regionally. This finding is intuitive because people avoid daycare due to the increased risk of exposure to infection. However, the number of users of home care is positively correlated to users of daycare, which implies that home care has not functioned as a replacement for daycare, despite government encouragement. Furthermore, a regression analysis using prefecture data shows that working hours for both females and males were negatively correlated to the national status of the pandemic, while the regional status of the pandemic was negatively correlated only to female working hours. This implies that female labor status is more vulnerable to such outbreaks in Japan. Also, we find consistent results with a situation in which informal care compensated for the decline in daycare use; and this care has been provided primarily by especially females who have reduced their working hours by COVID-19.
ISSN:0168-8510
1872-6054
DOI:10.1016/j.healthpol.2021.04.013