NEWS: New journal article: ‘Fairness and eligibility to long-term care: An analysis of the factors driving inequality and inequity in the use of home care for older Europeans’

DATE

16/10/2017

This article by Stefania Ilinca, Ricardo Rodrigues and Andrea E. Schmidt analyses differences in home care utilization between community-dwelling Europeans in nine countries. It presents concentration indexes and horizontal inequity indexes for each country and results from a decomposition analysis across income, care needs, household structures, education achievement and regional characteristics. It finds pro-poor inequality in home care utilization but little evidence of inequity when accounting for differential care needs. Household characteristics are an important contributor to inequality, while education and geographic locations hold less explanatory power. The authors discuss the findings in light of the normative assumptions surrounding different definitions of need in LTC and the possible regressive implications of policies that make household structures an eligibility criterion to access services.