TOTAL FACTOR PRODUCTIVITY CHANGE OF LONG-TERM CARE SYSTEM IN SELECTED OECD COUNTRIES

Abstract

The population is ageing, which has many social and economic implications, and one of them is an increase in demand for institutional long-term care for the elderly. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to analyse the change and to detect whether there are differences between twelve selected OECD countries in the period 2014-2019 in regard to the values of total factor productivity of long-term care system for the population aged 65 and over these countries. The Malmquist – DEA performance measure, under the assumption of the variable returns to scale (BCC model) and by using the input-oriented model, has been used to obtain the patterns of productivity change. The number of long-term workers and the number of beds in residential long-term care facilities are selected as input variables, while the number of long-term care recipients has been used as an output variable. According to obtained results, the total factor productivity in selected OECD countries increased by 1.023% in the analysed period. The increase is mainly a consequence of a 1.018% increase in technical efficiency, which emphasises an increase in managerial relative efficiency. Results obtained for Turkey indicate the highest productivity increase, accompanied by both a rise in technical efficiency and in technological change. Additionally, an increase in technical change that reflects a catch-up effect and a modest increase in technological change, indicating a lack of innovation altogether, resulted in an average productivity increase of 1.02% over the analysed period.