Abstract
Society’s gradual ageing has significantly affected the need for improvement of the care services for the elderly and the people with disabilities. This study aims to understand mechanisms of informal provision of services, the facilitators, and barriers for such practices on this adaptive mechanism in rural areas in Greece. The baseline of this article is a field study that was conducted in villages of two remote municipalities of Greece. The article comparatively analyses in the place of residence differences as a factor of conformation of a unique care and support regime that is offered to the elderly and disabled people. The article identifies regional patterns and explores implications for resident’s ability to access social welfare and the health market. The article contributes by incorporating the special characteristics of place of residence in the analysis of informal welfare regimes.
Highlights
The ageing of society is leading to significant reforms in long-term care policy and systems in many European countries
Materials and immaterial issues The study captured the difficulty of fulfillment of the needs of elderly and disabled people and the limitations that concern the accessibility to the healthcare structure in the rural area
Despite being a qualitative study capturing the perspective of a small sample of informal care regimes, we believe that the importance of the findings of this study still reflect the current context of informal provision of services and its various challenges
Summary
The ageing of society is leading to significant reforms in long-term care policy and systems in many European countries. The ever-growing ageing of the population makes the Greek healthcare system as the most European healthcare systems operate based on the demand for long-term healthcare services. This drives these systems to financial problems, especially, during periods of abatement of state benefits and other fiscal downscales. E. Ntaflou financial sustainability of the care system possible and they will create a better balance between offer and demand of care. Ntaflou financial sustainability of the care system possible and they will create a better balance between offer and demand of care This raises the question as to whether the volume of informal care will increase in the years ahead
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