Study on the Association of Caregiving with Spousal Caregivers' Health Outcomes

The purpose of my proposal project is to explore the causal association between caregiving and spousal
caregivers' health outcomes.
Spousal caregivers are often older people who are at high risk for geriatric syndromes. It is, therefore,
vital to examine the association of caregiving with the health outcomes of spousal caregivers. However,
identifying a causal association between caregiving and caregivers' health outcomes might be
complicated because of the presence of self-selection. To reduce the bias caused by self-selection, this
study is going to (i) use the 2013 and 2015 wave of China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, (ii)
use the non-caregivers with a disabled spouse as the control group, (3) use difference-in-difference-indifference
(DDD) model to control the unobservable confounders that do not change over time, reduce
the bias caused by treatment group and control group having unparallel trend in health outcomes, hence
reduce the bias caused by self-selection.