Providing sustainable long term care: a looming challenge

Long-term care (LTC hereafter) concerns people who depend on help to carry out daily activities. It is mainly delivered informally by families and to a lesser extent formally by professional care assistants and nursing homes. Most EU governments are also involved in some way in the provision or financing of LTC services. Right now, the future of LTC provision appears to be gloomy, for demographic, societal and financial reasons. This TSE Note studies the strengths and weaknesses of three institutions providing LTC services - namely the family, the State and the private insurance market - and provides policy recommendations based on the view that governments should take the leadership towards a comprehensive approach of the dependency problem, while relying as much as possible on the family and the market