Care for thy neighbour: A study of neighbours’ caregiving intentions by likelihood of reciprocity and previous caregiving experience

Given the increase in the proportion of older people as well as the decrease in family size, it can be expected that more and more informal care will fall onto the shoulders of non-kin, such as neighbours. Currently, neighbours rarely provide informal care, and knowledge on their characteristics and motivations is limited. This study advances our knowledge of neighbour caregivers by examining the impact of anticipated reciprocity and previous (negative) caregiving experience. Combining retrospective and factorial survey data on caregiving, we show that people have higher intentions to provide care to a neighbour when the likelihood of reciprocity is high (compared to low) and that prior caregiving experience is irrelevant for intentions to provide care to neighbours. However, our study suggests that the impact of reciprocity may depend on previous caregiving experience; having actual caregiving experience overrides expectations regarding the general norm of reciprocity, but only if the previous caregiver did not experience caregiver burden. With these results, this study indicates that neighbours can form a safety net for those who cannot rely on their family members for care.