Long term-care protection for older persons
9
Globally, the countries assessed in this study represent about 70 per cent of the world’s population in 2015: More than 80 per cent of the population in the Americas
about 81 per cent, some 75 per cent in Asia and the Pacific and 86 per cent of the population in Europe. The coverage in Africa is the lowest with about 26 per cent of the
population Figure 1.
Figure 1. Representativeness of countries selected in percentage of the global and regional populations
Source: ILO estimates, 2015; World Bank, 2015 population data in 2013.
When assessing the population group most in need of LTC – persons aged 65 and
over – the representativeness of the study amounts to about 81 per cent of the world’s
population that is 65 years and over. The selected group of countries represent up to 87 per cent of the regional populations aged 65 years and over Figure 2.
Figure 2. Representativeness of the global population aged 65+ in the countries selected
in percentage of population 65 years and over, total and regional
Source: ILO estimates, 2015; World Bank, 2015 population data in 2013. A complete list of the countries selected is available in Annex II.
26.3 80.8
74.6 85.7
69.2
20 40
60 80
100 Africa
Americas Asia and the Pacific
Europe World
27.0 86.9
82.6 86.9
80.5
20 40
60 80
100 Africa
Americas Asia and the Pacific
Europe World
10
Long term-care protection for older persons
2.3. Data development and assessment
The data development for this paper consisted of three steps. First, existing international data bases and relevant reports by international organizations like OECD,
WHO, World Bank, and ILO were cross-checked for comparable information on relevant aspects. The databases used are listed in Annex II. In addition, well known data bases such
as the SHARE data base
1
were also used. Second, for each selected country, we conducted a literature search using a fixed set of search terms to identify legislation, LTC policies and
provision of services and cash benefits. Third, after synthesizing the collected material, we contacted national experts, academics, authors, government representatives and policy
makers from the selected countries for a quality control of the collected material.
However, country specific information on legal coverage and access to services related to affordability, availability and financial protection data were not always available.
Further, statistics and definitions of formal and informal LTC workers used might not be fully comparable across countries.
For the core group of countries we have complete national data sets, while for a broader group only selected data is available. Against this background, new methodologies
had to be developed in order to assess gaps in deficits in access to LTC:
The legal coverage deficit of the population has been estimated based on analyses of national legislation. The indicator used to measure the legal coverage deficit is the
share of the population either percentage of total population or population aged 65+ without coverage in national legislation.
The evaluation of deficits in affordability of LTC is based on OOP indicating the amount of private expenditure directly paid to LTC providers. It is calculated as
follows:
1
This paper uses data from SHARE wave 4 release 1.1.1, as of March 28th 2013 DOI: 10.6103SHARE.w4.111. The SHARE data collection has been primarily funded by the European
Commission through the 5th Framework Programme project QLK6-CT-2001-00360 in the thematic programme Quality of Life, through the 6th Framework Programme projects SHARE-I3,
RII-CT-2006-062193, COMPARE, CIT5- CT-2005-028857, and SHARELIFE, CIT4-CT-2006- 028812 and through the 7th Framework Programme SHARE-PREP, N° 211909, SHARE-LEAP,
No. 227822 and SHARE M4, 261982. Additional funding from the U.S. National Institute on Aging U01 AG09740-13S2, P01 AG005842, P01 AG08291, P30 AG12815, R21 AG025169,
Y1-AG-4553-01, IAG BSR06-11 and OGHA 04-064 and the German Ministry of Education and Research as well as from various national sources is gratefully acknowledged see www.share-
project.org for a full list of funding institutions. The authors would like to thank the SHARE team email: infoshare-project.org for their support.
