Alasdair C Rutherford

Long‐Term Care and the Housing Market

This paper examines the combined effects of population ageing and changes in long-term care policy on the housing market. Those needing care prefer to receive it at home rather than in institutional settings. Public authorities prefer to provide care in residential settings which are generally lower cost than institutional care. The trend away from institutional provision towards care at home is endorsed by national governments and by the OECD. Nevertheless, as the number requiring care increases, this policy shift will maintain the level of housing demand above what it would otherwise be. It will also have distributional consequences with individuals less likely to reduce their housing equity to pay for institutional care, which in turn will increase the value of their bequests. Empirical analysis using the UK Family Resources Survey and the British Household Panel Survey shows that household formation effects involving those requiring long-term care are relatively weak and unlikely to significantly offset the effects of this policy shift on the housing market and on the distribution of wealth.

Networks of Informal Caring: A Mixed-Methods Approach

RÈSUMÈ:La prise en charge des soins des personnes âgées est un phénomène complexe et un sujet de préoccupation politique urgent. En rassemblant des littératures sur les prises en charge des soins venant des domaines de la gerontologie sociale et de l’economie, nous rapportons les résultats d’un projet de méthodes mixtes explorant les réseaux de prise en charge des soins informels. À l’aide de données quantitatives provenant du « British Household Panel Survey » (sondage officiel sur des menages britanniques), ainsi que des entretiens qualitatifs avec des personnes âgées et des travailleurs sociaux informels, nous décrivons des réseaux de prise en charge des soins informels différents, et les facteurs et processus décisifs qui ont contribué à la formation des réseaux. Une approche basée sur des réseaux de prise en charge des soins permet une étude à la fois quantitative et qualitative, et peut être utilisée pour explorer plusieurs questions importantes.Care for older people is a complex phenomenon, and is an area of pressing policy concern. Bringing together literature on care from social gerontology and economics, we report the findings of a mixed-methods project exploring networks of informal caring. Using quantitative data from the British Household Panel Survey (official survey of British households), together with qualitative interviews with older people and informal carers, we describe differences in formal care networks, and the factors and decision-making processes that have contributed to the formation of the networks. A network approach to care permits both quantitative and qualitative study, and the approach can be used to explore many important questions.

Get by with a little help from my friends: A recent history of charitable organisations in economic theory

Abstract Over the past 40 years the development of economic theories of charitable organisations has closely followed the literature on altruism. This paper argues that the debate around altruistic behaviour sparked by Richard Titmusss analysis of the economics of blood donations in 1970 led to a succession of economic theories of charity, moving altruism from the fringes to the core of the theory. While initially based on the collective provision of public goods, they have now embraced the ‘warm-glow’ literature, but the full implications of behavioural economics for our understanding of charities have yet to be realised.

Rising Wages in the Expanding U.K. Nonprofit Sector From 1997 to 2007

Since 1997, the U.K. Government has sought to expand the provision of public services by supporting the independent nonprofit sector. With policies to build the capacity of the sector, public spending on voluntary organizations has grown from £2 billion in 1996/1997 to £6.88 billion in 2005/2006. Theory suggests that the comparative advantage of nonprofits lies in the mission motivation of workers, and predicts that motivated workers will accept lower wages. We examine sector wage differentials in time series to show that growth in voluntary sector wages for males has outpaced the private and public sectors, while relative female wages have remained static.

The Determinants of Charity Misconduct

Charities in the United Kingdom have been the subject of intense media, political, and public scrutiny in recent times; however, our understanding of the nature, extent, and determinants of charity misconduct is weak. Drawing upon a novel administrative dataset of 25,611 charities for the period 2006-2014 in Scotland, we develop models to predict two dimensions of charity misconduct: regulatory investigation and subsequent action. There have been 2,109 regulatory investigations of 1,566 Scottish charities over the study period, of which 31% resulted in regulatory action being taken. Complaints from members of the public are most likely to trigger an investigation, whereas the most common concerns relate to general governance and misappropriation of assets. Our multivariate analysis reveals a disconnect between the types of charities that are suspected of misconduct and those that are subject to subsequent regulatory action.

Pilot study protocol to inform a future longitudinal study of ageing using linked administrative data: Healthy AGeing in Scotland (HAGIS)

Introduction Population ageing is a welcome testament to improvements in the social, economic and health circumstances over the life course. However, these successes necessitate that we understand more about the pathways of ageing to plan and cost our health and social care services, to support our ageing population to live healthier for longer and to make adequate provisions for retirement. Longitudinal studies of ageing facilitate such understanding in many countries around the world. Scotland presently does not have a longitudinal study of ageing, despite dramatic increases to its ageing population and its poor health record. Healthy AGeing in Scotland (HAGIS) constitutes the launch of Scotland’s first comprehensive longitudinal study of ageing. Methods A sample of 1000 people aged 50+ years will be invited to take part in a household social survey. The innovative sampling procedure used administrative data to identify eligible households. Anonymised survey responses will be linked to administrative data. Ethics and dissemination Ethics approval was obtained from the host institution for the study design and from the Public Benefits and Privacy Panel for administrative data linkage. Anonymised survey data will be deposited with the UK Data Service. A subset of survey data, harmonised with other global ageing studies, will be available via the Gateway to Global Aging platform. These data will enable powerful cross-country comparisons across the social, economic and health domains that will be relevant for national and international research. Research publications from the HAGIS team will be disseminated through journal articles and national and international conferences. The findings will support current and future research and policy debate on ageing populations.

Career Concerns versus Shared Values: An Empirical Investigation

We study the relationship between career concerns and shared values empirically using employee–employer matched data for the United Kingdom and overtime hours as a proxy for hard work. In line with standard career-concerns theory, we find that employees work less overtime the longer they have been with their current employer. We also find that employees who agree strongly with the statement ‘I share many of the values of my organisation’ do roughly 20% more overtime than the rest. Our results suggest the existence of a trade-off between career concerns and shared values. We begin to consider some potential implications of this for employee recruitment as well as for the design of career paths across the private, public and voluntary sectors.

Issues with the Measurement of Informal Care in Social Surveys: Evidence from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (Forthcoming/Available Online)

ABSTRACT Informal care plays a significant role in the care system for older people in the United Kingdom, and this is projected to increase considerably in the next three decades as the population ages. Understanding these trends requires a good quality measurement of informal care. In this study, we compare care-givers’ responses to different informal care questions from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) to investigate the influence of question design on the self-reporting of informal care. We also analyse spousal care dyads in order to model discrepancies in the reporting of care provision between spouses to provide an insight into the reliability of informal care measurements. We find that the most common measures used are likely to be under-estimating both the scale and scope of informal care, and we recommend careful consideration of the content of informal care survey questions in order to operationalise the measures of informal care activities.