Sharing the caring? Dynamic interaction between siblings in the provision of care to parents

Adult daughters provide nearly three times as many hours of care to elderly parents as adult sons do. I analyse the role of strategic interaction between siblings in exacerbating this gap in care provision. To do so, I build and estimate a dynamic discrete-choice game in which siblings make location, work and care choices. I find that the opportunity for strategic play increases gender differences in caring responsibilities. Sons in particular strategically shirk providing care as they believe their sibling is relatively likely to provide care in their absence. Counterfactual experiments show that if siblings instead took care, location and work choices independently then the gender care gap would be around 31% smaller. Also, I find that unobserved preference differences between sons and daughters are far more important in driving the gender care gap than observed differences in wages.