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A country for old men?: an analysis of the determinants of long-term home care in Europe
- Authors:
- BALIA Sylvia, BRAU Rinaldo
- Publisher:
- Centre for North South Economic Research
- Publication year:
- 2011
- Pagination:
- 33p., bibliog.
- Place of publication:
- Cagliari
In the last few years, European and other developed countries have been undergoing population ageing due to lower fertility rates and increased life expectancy and partly driven by advances in medicine. The downside is that public and private health care expenditure are thought to increase with the number of elderly people and the average age of the population. This is particular cause for concern for the sustainability of national welfare and health care systems. This paper investigates long-term home care utilisation in Europe. It used data from SHARE on formal and informal care to study the probability and the number of hours of both types of care received. It addressed endogeneity and unobservable heterogeneity in a common latent factors framework. Findings revealed that age, disability and proximity-to death were important joint predictors of home care utilisation. Unlike some previous studies, it was found that increasing the number of hours of informal support does not lead to a reduction in formal care utilisation.