Magdalena A . Stroka Choice of Received Long - term Care – Individual Responses to Regional Nursing Home Provisions

Existing literature analyzing the choice of received long-term care by frail elderly (65+ years) predominantly focuses on physical and psychological conditions of elderly people as factors that infl uence the decision for a particular type of care. Until now, however, the regional in-patient long-term care supply has been neglected as infl uential factor in the individual’s decision-making process. In this study, we analyze the choice of received long-term care by explicitly taking the regional supply of nursing homes into account. When estimating a discrete choice model, we distinguish between four diff erent types of formal and informal care provision. We fi nd that the decision for long-term in-patient care is signifi cantly correlated with the regional supply of nursing home places, while controlling for physical and psychological conditions of the individual. JEL Classifi cation: C35, D12, I11