abstract: 'A substantial proportion of working age individuals in Britain are

  looking after sick, disabled or elderly people, often combining their

  work and caring responsibilities. Previous research has shown that

  informal care is linked with substantial opportunity costs for the

  individual due to forgone wages as a result of non-labour market

  participation. In this paper we show that informal carers exhibit

  further disadvantages even when participating. Using the British

  Household Panel Study (BHPS) we decompose wage differentials and show

  that carers can expect lower returns for a given set of characteristics,

  with this wage penalty varying along the pay distribution and by gender.

  Furthermore, opportunity costs from forgone wages and wage penalties are

  estimated and found to be substantial. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights

  reserved.'
affiliation: 'Heitmueller, A (Corresponding Author), London Business Sch, PMSU, IZA
  Bonn, London, England.

  London Business Sch, PMSU, IZA Bonn, London, England.

  McMaster Univ, DWP, London, England.'
author: Heitmueller, Axel and Inglis, Kirsty
author-email: aheitmueller@london.edu
author_list:
- family: Heitmueller
  given: Axel
- family: Inglis
  given: Kirsty
da: '2023-09-28'
doi: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2006.12.009
files: []
issn: 0167-6296
journal: JOURNAL OF HEALTH ECONOMICS
keywords: decomposition; earnings distribution; opportunity costs
language: English
month: JUL 1
number: '4'
number-of-cited-references: '17'
pages: 821-841
papis_id: 7d323f7911c0d68eee2c17cda37c662f
ref: Heitmueller2007earningsinformal
times-cited: '115'
title: 'The earnings of informal carers: Wage differentials and opportunity costs'
type: Article
unique-id: WOS:000247558100009
usage-count-last-180-days: '1'
usage-count-since-2013: '26'
volume: '26'
web-of-science-categories: Economics; Health Care Sciences \& Services; Health Policy
  \& Services
year: '2007'