Family caregivers in South Korea show markedly different willingness to use institutional long-term care depending on whether they live with care recipients—coresidence significantly reduces institutional care uptake. This pattern reflects how social structure and proximity shape healthcare decision-making, with implications for how aging populations navigate the boundary between family and institutional care.
Key Points
- Coresidence reduces family caregivers' willingness to utilize institutional care
- Spouse caregivers show different patterns than adult children caregivers
- Social proximity influences long-term care system utilization across cultures
Longevity Analysis
The willingness to delegate institutional care is not merely a clinical or economic choice—it reflects how caregiving burden, family structure, and physical proximity interact to shape actual healthcare use. For individuals and families planning for extended healthspan, understanding these decision points reveals where support systems fail or succeed. Caregivers who live apart from care recipients demonstrate greater readiness to access formal services, suggesting that geographic separation may facilitate more distributed care models rather than concentration of responsibility. Conversely, coresidence creates conditions where family obligation intensifies, potentially delaying or preventing access to specialized institutional services even when beneficial. This research maps a critical gap: the transition from home-based family care to institutional support depends not only on medical need or insurance access, but on the structural circumstances that make delegation psychologically and
Original published by SAGE Research on Aging, by Seung-Eun Cha, Kyungmin Kim, YongJoo Rhee1Department of Child and Family Welfare, 35025The University of Suwon, Hwaseong, Gyeonggi-do, Republic of Korea2Department of Child Development and Family Studies, College of Human Ecology, 26725Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea3Integrated Major in Regional Studies and Spatial Analytics, 26725Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea4Department of Health Science, Dongduk Women’s University, Seoul, Republic of Korea.