The growing number of very old Americans is expected to increase the number of persons depending on others for long-term assistance with daily activities of personal care and household tasks. The amount of help that these disabled elderly can use in their homes depends on the resources available to them to cope with their disabilities. This help is essential to their well-being and to their ability to continue living in the community. The proposed study will assess the effects of economic and social resources that make continued living at home possible. Moreover, since women or minority persons may have different coping resources than men or majority individuals, and since they may also differ in their need for help, this project will investigate differences in the amount of help that can be attributed to gender and race differences in need and resources. Based on national data, this study is expected to provide a wealth of systematic information on the coping ability of the most vulnerable segments of the elderly population, information which can be useful in assessing the magnitudes of unmet need for help in the community. The study will be based on the recently released public use tape of the 1989 National Long Term Care Survey, which provides data (not previously available) on the total number of hours of non-skilled help used by disabled elders in their homes. The determinants of this amount are: (i) the need for help, and (ii) the resources to meet this need. Controlling for need, the study plans to focus on combinations of family helpers and shared living with helpers as resources for unpaid help and on income and assets as resources for paid help. It will provide separate estimates for married and unmarried elders. For the latter, it will estimate a two equation model that corrects the bias due to an endogenous choice of shared living quarters made to obtain help. This information can be used to assess the magnitude of unmet need for in-home help when resources for unpaid help may be less readily available and when sharing living quarters with children will become a less likely option.
