Forms of providing and financing long-term care in OECD countries

Abstract

Long-term care is being prioritised due to population ageing, and hand in hand with the development of professional provision of long-term care, public expenditures will be increasing. Mainly countries with a sharp increase in the number of people aged 80+ will have to address the sustainability of long-term care systems and the procurement of relevant services. This paper aims to evaluate the forms of provision and financing of long-term care in selected OECD countries. Provision and funding of long-term care in terms of a formal system are assessed based on selected criteria using analytical methods (principal component analysis and TwoStep cluster analysis). Results of the evaluation carried out in 2008 and 2013 by means of the selected indicators of long-term care, using TwoStep cluster analysis, confirmed both similar as well as different approaches to the provision and financing of long-term care in the analysed countries. The most marked differences in the provision of care based on indicators LTC recipients aged 65+ and LTC recipients in institutions as a percentage of total LTC recipients were found between the first cluster (Australia and Korea with the highest share of LTC recipients) and the second cluster (Czech Republic, Estonia, with the lowest share of LTC recipients). In financing of long-term care (LTC expenditures on institutions as a percentage of total LTC expenditures), the most significant differences were observed between the first (Australia, Korea, with the largest share of LTC expenditures on institutions) and third cluster (mainly Nordic countries, with the lowest share of LTC expenditures on institutions of total LTC expenditures).