The Current Challenges
Since the 1990s, European societies have faced the challenge of developing Long-Term Care (LTC) systems to address ageing populations while balancing high-quality care, promoting employment for women and older workers, expanding service jobs, and containing social expenditure.
The COVID-19 pandemic and demographic shifts have highlighted LTC’s structural shortcomings. Fragmented LTC policies lead to overlaps and gaps in services, varying widely due to differing investments and societal beliefs. Rising care demands, austerity measures, and reliance on informal caregivers strain working conditions for care workers.
Low pay, precarious jobs, understaffing, and high turnover characterize care employment, compounded by complex care needs and a growing reliance on migrant workers. Multiple supranational actors, including the WHO and OECD, stress the need for integrated, inclusive LTC policies. The EU’s Care Strategy and National Recovery Plans aim for reform, promoting quality LTC services, better job conditions, and sustainability. This approach seeks to enhance job quality, sector resilience, and gender equality.
In this scenario, advancing LTC policies and practices toward greater equality, inclusive growth, resilience, and societal wellbeing relies on comprehensively understanding the challenges ahead.
To create a genuine “EU Care strategy,” we must develop integrated care models that are scalable and utilise new business models and technologies.
First, we need to consider the unique contexts, needs, and solutions of different countries, and understand how obstacles are overcome.
We should then analyse exemplary models in an integrated manner, addressing needs, solutions, tensions, and contexts together. Studying other countries’ models isn’t about direct replication but about understanding available choices, resolving tensions, and adapting practices to each context. This approach leads to practices that are reasonable and sensible for their specific contexts.
It is crucial to empirically investigate the drivers of inequalities in LTC, analyse emerging practices, and assess their potential to enhance social protection, inclusive growth, and sustainability. Additionally, facilitating and implementing effective, collaborative, and contextualized policy and practice learning processes are essential.
Research can help by analysing trade-offs and exploring alternative options, providing valuable insights to decision-makers and stakeholders.