LONG-TERM CARE.

Abstract

This chapter is concerned with the rise in long-term care needs. Long-term care concerns individuals who are no longer able to carry out basic daily activities. Most of the care is currently provided by informal caregivers, mainly the family, while the role of formal care provided by the state or the market remains small. The chapter explains, however, why informal care is expected to decline and analyses the low private insurance development, the so-called long-term care insurance puzzle. These two factors, the decreasing role of the family and a thin insurance market, plead for the development of a full fledge social insurance for long-term care. The chapter then looks at the optimal design of such an insurance.