End-of-life care and depression

Abstract The time around the death of a parent may be particularly stressful. The existing literature provides mixed evidence on the effects of the death of a parent on the caring effort and mental health conditions of adult children. By exploiting longitudinal data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), we study adult children’s provision of care and mental health before and after the death of their mother. We pinpoint the time of death of the mother and estimate its impact by following an event study approach, accounting for differences in Long Term Care (LTC) systems and social norms across Europe. Our findings show that caregiving increases before mother’s death, and especially for women and in low LTC spending countries. Depression symptoms increase significantly in the pooled sample and more so for women. Our interpretation is that adult children (typically daughters) must step in to guarantee care when this is scarcely provided by the public welfare system. The combination of care burden and grief for the loss of the mother negatively affects daughters’ mental health.