In this paper, we compare and analyse the systems for financing long-term care for older people in the Scandinavian countries-Denmark, Norway and Sweden. The three countries share common political traditions of local autonomy and universalism, and these common roots are very apparent when the financing of long-term care is concerned. Nevertheless, the Scandinavian systems for long-term care (LTC) exhibit some important deviations from the idealized "universal welfare state" to which these countries are normally ascribed. For example, user charges tend to be strongly dependent on earnings, which is incoherent with the general norm of flat-rate public services. Also, there is significant regional variation in the level of services provided, which is in direct contrast with the universalist ambitions. Overall, the Scandinavian countries distinguish themselves through their very high reliance on public spending in long-term care. It is unclear to what extent the Scandinavian model for financing of long term care will be sustainable as demographic change progresses in the next few decades.
Macroeconomic downturns can have an important impact on the receipt of informal and formal long-term care, since recessions increase the number of unemployed and affect net wealth. This paper investigates how the market for informal care changed during and after the Great Recession in Europe, with particular focus on their various determinants. We use data from the Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe, which includes a rich set of variables covering waves before and after the Great Recession. We find evidence of an increase in the availability of informal care after the economic downturn when controlling for year and country fixed effects. This trend is mainly driven by changes in care provision of individuals not cohabiting with the care recipient. We also find evidence of several determinants of informal care receipt changing during the crisis -such as physical needs, personal wealth and household structures.
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