Financial support for unmet need for personal assistance with daily activities: Implications from China's long-term care insurance pilots

Abstract

This study investigates the association between income and unmet need for personal assistance with daily activities and introduces four policy options for financial support for the unmet need, particularly the public long-term care insurance (LTCI) system. Using the logit model and random forest algorithm, we find that household income is a significant contributing factor to unmet need. Moreover, we find that older adults in the low-income group have a higher level of unmet needs. China's policy experimentation shows that financial support can be provided in the policy arrangements of LTCI financing with low individual contributions and benefits with a high reimbursement rate.