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Published in: BMC Health Services Research 1/2020

Open Access 01-12-2020 | Care | Research article

Willingness-to-pay and willingness-to-accept of informal caregivers of dependent elderly people in Shanghai, China

Authors: Wenwei Liu, Tongzhou Lyu, Xiaoyi Zhang, Suwei Yuan, Huimin Zhang

Published in: BMC Health Services Research | Issue 1/2020

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Abstract

Background

In order to make optimal long-term care-related decisions, it is important to take a societal perspective. Shanghai is one of the pilot cities of social long-term care insurance in China. However, little knowledge exists about the economic value of the informal care provided to dependent elderly people in China. This paper aims to evaluate the economic value of informal caregiving in Shanghai using the contingent valuation method by their least-preferred care tasks, and identify the associated factors of willingness-to-pay (WTP) and willingness-to-accept (WTA) of the informal caregivers.

Methods

This study employed the contingent valuation method to elicit 371 informal caregivers’ WTP and WTA for 1 hour of reduction or increase of least-preferred caring tasks in Shanghai. Univariate and multivariate analyses were conducted to explore the associated factors with the WTP and WTA values.

Results

The average WTP and WTA were 25.31 CNY and 38.66 CNY, respectively. The associated factors with WTP include caregiver’s income and caregiver’s relationship to the recipient. Care recipient’s age, income, least-preferred task by the caregiver, and subscales of Caregiver Reaction Assessment were found to be associated with WTA. The non-responsiveness rates were 26.1 and 33.2% for WTP and WTA questions, respectively.

Conclusions

The findings of the current study demonstrated that decision-makers and researchers should take the economic valuation results of informal care into account to make more informed and effective long-term care-related policies and analyses.
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Metadata
Title
Willingness-to-pay and willingness-to-accept of informal caregivers of dependent elderly people in Shanghai, China
Authors
Wenwei Liu
Tongzhou Lyu
Xiaoyi Zhang
Suwei Yuan
Huimin Zhang
Publication date
01-12-2020
Publisher
BioMed Central
Keyword
Care
Published in
BMC Health Services Research / Issue 1/2020
Electronic ISSN: 1472-6963
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-020-05481-2

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