@article {9856, title = {A Comprehensive Measure of the Costs of Caring for a Parent: Differences According to Functional Status}, journal = {Journal of the American Geriatrics Society}, volume = {66}, year = {2018}, month = {Jan-10-2018}, pages = {2003 - 2008}, abstract = {Approximately 34 million family and friends provided unpaid care to individuals aged 50 and older in 2015. It is difficult to place a value on that time, because no payment is made to the caregiver, and multiplying caregiving hours by a wage does not account for the value of lost leisure time, implications for future employability and wages, or any intrinsic benefits accrued to the care provider. This study used a dynamic discrete choice model to estimate the costs of informal care provided by a daughter to her mother, including these other costs and benefits not typically accounted for, and compared these cost estimates for 4 categories of the mother{\textquoteright}s functional status: doctor-diagnosed memory-related disease, limitations in activities of daily living (ADLs), combination of both, cannot be left alone for 1 hour or more. We studied women aged 40 to 70 with a living mother at the start of the sample period (N=3,427 adult daughters) using data from the Health and Retirement Study (1998{\textendash}2012). The primary outcome was the monetized change in well-being due to caregiving, what economists call {\textquotedblleft}welfare costs.{\textquotedblright} We estimate that the median cost to the daughter{\textquoteright}s well-being of providing care to an elderly mother ranged from $144,302 to $201,896 over 2 years, depending on the mother{\textquoteright}s functional status. These estimates suggest that informal care cost $277 billion in 2011, 20\% more than estimates that account only for current foregone wages. {\textcopyright} 2018, Copyright the Author Journal compilation {\textcopyright} 2018, The American Geriatrics Society }, keywords = {Caregiving, Informal care, Well-being}, doi = {10.1111/jgs.15552}, url = {https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30222183/}, author = {Norma B Coe and Meghan M. Skira and Eric B Larson} }