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trenDs in home anD nursing Care
In eUROpe
introDuCtion
Anita Abramowska-Kmon
SGH Warsaw School of Economics, Institute of Statistics and Demography
One of the consequences of population ageing process is an increase in the number of dependent older people, leading to a growing demand for different types of care services (Doblhammer et al. 2008; Doblhammer & Ziegler 2006; Vaupel & Kistowski 2008). Health status, a main determinant of care needs among older individuals, increases sig- ni cantly with age (Doblhammer et al. 2008, Vaupel 2010). Older people in need may receive informal care from family members or friends and neighbours, while formal care services comprise both public services and those acquired on the market (Kalwij, Pasini & Wu 2012, Ogg & Renaut 2006, Bittman et al. 2004; Bolin et al. 2008; Bonsang 2009). European countries differ signi cantly in terms of advancement of population ageing, care arrangements for older individuals and the public spending on long term care (LTC). When it comes to population ageing, there is a clear-cut division of Europe with Western, Northern and Southern European countries, where the share of people aged 65 years and more is signi cantly higher than in Central and Eastern European states. For example, the highest proportion of older people may be observed in Italy (22.6% in 2018), while the lowest in Albania (13.6% in 2018). Estonia with 19.6% of older adults is situated about the middle among the analysed European countries. Accor- ding to the population projections, the percentage of older people will rise signi cantly in the future in all countries, however, the pace of demographic ageing is and will be different in European countries, so that their distribution will change: it may be expec- ted that populations of Central and Eastern countries will be older demographically than Western and Northern European countries. What is important, the population aged 85
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