Along with population ageing and the change in family structure, the social need for long-term care for the elderly has also increased. How have welfare states responded to this need? This study has attempted to answer this question.
The dramatic change in the economy, political system, and society have caused welfare pluralism to emerge and develope in every country. Each country, however, has produced different role sharing systems.
In this study, I chose two analytical axes. One is the level of de-commodification: How do the public and the private sectors share roles in payment for care? The other is the level of de-familisation: How are formal care and informal care balanced? By crossing these two axes, I obtained four patterns of role sharing in long-term care: the state dependency pattern (high level of public payment and high level of out-of-family provision) , the family dependency pattern (low level of public payment and low level of out-of-family provision), the family supportive pattern (high level of public payment and low level of out-of-family provision), and the market dependency pattern (low level of public payment and high level of out-of-family provision).
I applied Qualitative Comparative Analysis(QCA) of 16 OECD countries. Based on these analyses, I grouped 16 countries into four patterns: Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Netherland fall in to the state dependency pattern. Belgium, Japan, UK, France, Ireland, Italy, and Spain fall in to the family dependency pattern. Australia, US, Canada, Finland, and Germany fall in to the market dependency pattern. No country comes under the family supportive pattern.
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