Abstract
AbstractAs a result of the rapid ageing of societies, meeting the demands for long-term care has become increasingly difficult. In the Netherlands, informal care is recognised as a key element to compensate for cut-backs in formal care provision. Formal, informal and privately paid long-term care services, however, are not used equally across socio-economic status (SES) groups and whether these inequalities have been reduced or exacerbated over time has not been researched. This study investigates to what extent educational and income inequalities in the use of formal, informal and privately paid care have changed over time. Data from the Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam (LASA) was used from three points in time: 1995 (N = 787), 2005 (N = 550) and 2015 (N = 473). Participants were between 75 and 85 years of age and living independently. The results indicate that lower SES groups are consistently more likely to use formal and informal care, and less likely to use privately paid care compared to higher SES groups. An increase in inequality was only found in the use of informal care; while informal care use is stable among lower SES groups, it decreases steeply among higher SES groups. These findings highlight the importance of education for explaining variation and changes over time in care use. Governmental efforts to mobilise informal care-givers might be outweighed by trends towards less long-term care.
Highlights
In many western nations, the population ages rapidly: life expectancy has consistently increased throughout the 20th century and continues to increase further
The present study investigated whether LTC use in the Netherlands changed unequally between socio-economic status (SES) groups through three periods in which the LTC system changed substantially (1995, 2005 and 2015)
The findings of this study imply that there is an overall trend towards a decreasing proportion of individuals who use LTC, but that socio-economic inequalities remain largely consistent across the three time periods with only informal care decreasing more steeply among those with higher education
Summary
The population ages rapidly: life expectancy has consistently increased throughout the 20th century and continues to increase further. In 1960, less than 9 per cent of the population was above 65 years old, compared to more than 17 per cent in 2017 (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), 2020). As a result of population ageing, it becomes Informal care has been recognised as a key element to compensate cutbacks in formal care provision (Zigante, 2018)
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