Sizing Up the Challenge Ahead: Future Demographic Trends and Long-term Care Costs

This chapter is from the 2011 OECD publication, Help Wanted? Providing and Paying for Long-Term Care. Pressures on long-term care systems are expected to grow in the future, for at least four reasons: - demographic transformations will increase demand for long-term care services in all societies. - changing societal models will contribute to a decline in the availability of family carers, leading to an increase in the need for paid care. - as societies become wealthier, individuals demand better quality and more responsive social-care systems. - technological change enhances possibilities for long-term care services at home but may require a different organisation of care. These factors will create pressure on the demand for long-term care services. They will raise pressure for improving the provision of care services and their performance, and, therefore, their cost. This chapter presents demographic forecasts for OECD countries, and projections on family carers in selected OECD countries and long-term care cost.