Playing the game of 'Who'll take care of Mom?' - University of Virginia

When we are children, our parents are our caretakers, but in time many adult children find themselves taking care of their elderly parents. As thousands of baby boomers are discovering, this role reversal can have profound emotional, social and financial implications. In a study titled "Long-Term Care & Family Bargaining," Maxim Engers, professor of economics, and Steven M. Stern, Merrill Bank Professor of Economics, examine how families negotiate the difficult process of providing long-term care for elderly parents.

Negotiate. Hmmm. And this is interesting:

Finally, the study discredits two commonly held notions about long-term care. The first misconception is that oldest daughters care for their elderly parents more often than their siblings do. The data, according to Engers and Stern, no longer support that notion. Nor do the data support the conventional wisdom that adult children's employment is the main factor in deciding parental care. If anything, Stern notes, "mobility seems to be the most significant variable explaining current trends in families’ care of elderly parents."

Of course mobility is endogenous, not that I'm suggesting anyone would move far from home to get out of taking care of mom. We move primarily for job reasons when we are young, and for others reasons when we retire and aren't tied to a job. It may be that mom moved away from the kids and the snow, and gone to Florida.

In the Emirates the 80% of the population is here for job reasons. Many are here alone and sending money home to their parents or spouse. This is most common in the low wage sector (in fact, your family is prohibited from joining you if your income is below a certain level). But there are many Sort Of Batchelors doing the same thing whose familiers are allowed to accompany them.

For the 20% who are nationals, social acceptance of putting mom and dad in a home hasn't happened, yet. (For the unlucky few with no family there are facilities. The one not far from here is named Old Folks Home.) But then there is family resistance to moving far from home for job reasons, too. Even to a neighboring emirate.

Intra and inter-emirate mobility among the seven emirates is a topic I should explore in future posts.