Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2025 Feb 6:13:1496637.
doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1496637. eCollection 2025.

The influence of spousal care on the health of middle-aged and older adult caregivers in China-empirical analysis based on CHARLS data

Rui Wang  1
Affiliations

The influence of spousal care on the health of middle-aged and older adult caregivers in China-empirical analysis based on CHARLS data

Rui Wang. Front Public Health. .

Abstract

Objectives: With the decrease of the number of children and the increase of population mobility, child care presents a phenomenon of "double shortage" of human and time resources, and spousal care is becoming an important care source for middle-aged and older adult people in China. However, less studies have taken middle-aged and older adult couples as research subject to explore the health effects of spousal care in the process of aging. This paper attempts to explore the effects of caregiving on the health of caregivers from the perspective of spousal care.

Methods: Using China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) database, this paper constructs a panel data fixed effect model to explore the effects of spousal care on the health of middle-aged and older adult caregivers. Further, instrumental variables (IV) estimation and propensity score matching (PSM) are used to minimize the impacts of endogeneity.

Results: Spousal care has no significant effect on the physical health of middle-aged and older adult caregivers, but it has a significant negative effect on their mental health. Providing spousal care has a stronger negative effect on the mental health of female or rural middle-aged and older adult caregivers. The mechanism analysis shows that spousal care affects the mental health by reducing the number of weekly exercise and increasing the family's non-food expenditure.

Conclusion: The provision of spousal care in the middle-aged and older adult groups does harm the mental health of caregivers. Vulnerable groups such as families in which both spouses need care, female or rural caregivers expect more attention and support.

Keywords: mental health; non-food expenditure; physical health; spousal care; weekly exercise.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

References

    1. Chen L, Wang L. Long-term care insurance and elderly service provision - a test based on the perspective of New Market entities (in Chinese). Econ Perspect. (2024):96–111.
    1. Shea JL, Zhang Y. Ethnography of eldercare by elders in Shanghai, China. Ageing Int. (2016) 41:366–93. doi: 10.1007/s12126-016-9262-6 - DOI
    1. Tan R, Gao R, Tan J, Zhu Q, Liu H, Lei W, et al. The care needs of the elderly in China's elderly care institutions: a narrative synthesis. Int J Qual Health Care. (2024) 36:1–7. doi: 10.1093/intqhc/mzad112, PMID: - DOI - PubMed
    1. Zong Q, Zhang Y, Chen Y. Health and care needs in old age: theory and evidence from random experiment (in Chinese). Econ Stud. (2020) 55:36–51.
    1. ILO . Care work and care jobs: for the future of decent work. (2018). https://www.ilo.org/publications/major-publications/care-work-and-care-j...

LinkOut - more resources