Netspar Brief 14: Who Will Care and Pay for the Seniors of Tomorrow?

Demand for long-term elder care has skyrocketed in recent decades and is expected to continue to rise. As a result, greater emphasis has been placed on individual responsibility and self-reliance in arranging for such care, with the primary impact being more out-of-pocket costs and informal care. In the fourteenth Netspar Brief, Pieter Bakx et al. (EUR) analyze which groups are bearing these costs and how they might be distributed among various groups.

The study showed that people with little income and informal caregivers are especially at risk. Purchasing care can quickly become unaffordable and excessive pressure on informal caregivers is having negative health effects and may even have negative effects on the labor market long term. Accordingly, policy options are explored for helping those groups who bear an inordinate share of the burden for the greater levels of individual care provision. Options are also explored for better distributing such costs across the lifespan.

Download the Netspar Brief (only availabe in Dutch).
Read the English summary.