Resilience as a Determinant of Receiving and Providing Care in Later Life – a Road to Sustainable Ageing in European Countries?

Anita Abramowska-Kmon , SGH Warsaw School of Economics,
Wiktoria Bachorek, SGH Warsaw School of Economics
Wojciech Latkowski, SGH Warsaw School of Economics

The main objective of the paper is to analyse the receipt and provision of care (to adults or grandchildren), taking into account resilience markers of people aged 50+. We used the 9th wave of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) conducted in 2021/2022 and applied logistic regressions for dependent variables describing the fact of providing or receiving care. To determine levels of resilience, latent class modelling was used for the variables describing psychological well-being, health status and subjective financial situation. In general, the higher the class, the worse the situation in terms of resilience. The results of the logistic regression modelling showed that receiving care can be associated with characteristics of lower resilience. Furthermore, care is provided to people who belong to latent classes with lower resilience, while at the same time lower resilience leads to a lower probability of providing care to both adults and grandchildren. In conclusion, to build a resilient society in the future, individual resilience should be strengthened, which would translate into greater independence and a reduced likelihood of needing care in old age. Promoting individual resilience over life course may lead to greater societal resilience in the future. This approach aligns with the concept of sustainable ageing, which involves building socially sustainable care and health systems, and creating a society that caters for people of all ages.

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 Presented in Session 104. Flash Session Caregiving Patterns, Determinants and Consequences