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Help Wanted?

Providing and Paying for Long-Term Care

image of Help Wanted?

This book examines the challenges countries are facing with regard to providing and paying for long-term care. With populations ageing and the need for long-term care growing rapidly, this book looks at such issues as: future demographic trends, policies to support family carers, long-term care workers, financing arrangements, long-term care insurance, and getting better value for money in long-term care. 

 

“WHO recognizes that long-term care represents a major challenge for all countries in the world, with important implications for economic development and for the health and well-being of older people. This well-documented book provides a comparative analysis of the common challenges and diverse solutions OECD countries are adopting to respond to the growing demand for long-term care services, and particularly its implications for financing and labour markets.  It provides much needed evidence to guide policy makers and individuals.”

-Dr John Beard, Director, Department of Ageing and Life Course,

World Health Organization

 

“This carefully researched book offers invaluable data and insights into the organization and financing of long-term care in OECD countries.  The book is an indispensable resource for anyone interested in international long-term care”.



-Dr. Joshua M. Wiener, Distinguished Fellow and Program Director

of RTI’s Aging, Disability, and Long-Term Care Program, United States

English Also available in: French

The Impact of Caring on Family Carers

Supporting the role of informal carers (family and friends providing mostly unpaid care to frail seniors) is important to provide an adequate continuum of care between informal and formal care. While caregiving can be beneficial for carers in terms of their self-esteem, it can be difficult for working-age carers to combine paid work with caring duties and carers may choose to quit paid works or reduce the work hours. This may compromise their future employability and lead to permanent drop-out from the labour market. Caring may also cause burnout and stress, potentially leading to worsening physical and mental health. This chapter offers an overview of the characteristics of family carers and the impact of caring for frail seniors on labour market and health outcomes of carers. This will provide insights in how to shape policy reforms with the objectives of 1) helping carers to combine caring responsibilities with paid work; and 2) improving carers’ physical and mental wellbeing by reducing mental health problems. Countries which want to maintain or increase reliance on family carers will need to alleviate the burden of family carers and reduce the economic costs associated with caring responsibilities.

English Also available in: French

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