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September 4, 2025

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Joseph-Simon Görlach

(Bocconi)

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Matching with preferences:
Caring who cares for the old

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Abstract:

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This paper quantifies the role of preferences in home-based long-term care using internal data from an agency matching caregivers and recipients. Ex-ante stated preferences of employing households and care workers, actual matches, wages, and job durations allow estimation of a structural matching model that recovers each party's valuation of match attributes as well as employment stability as a function of preferences. Linking the agency data to population registers suggests that demand is rising fastest in areas with stronger preferences for European workers, while the importance of workers' gender will decline. Simulations predict welfare changes under varying care worker compositions.