The Cost of a Retirement Home in Europe

Living in a retirement home is extremely expensive and, as data from Orpea shows, it varies from country to country. Luxembourg costs the most on average, with a person living in a retirement home expecting to pay €305 euros per day in 2020. Spain comes at the other end of the scale, where it totals around €55 euros a day. According to Statista’s Residential care in Europe dossier, countries with higher privatization of care homes also show the highest costs.

Data shows that access to such resources is also impacted by gender. Across the EU, a pensions pay gap exists between men and women, with Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Austria and the UK seeing the widest gender pension gaps in 2020, according to the OECD. The countries with the smallest gender pay gap were Estonia, the Slovak Republic, Denmark and Czechia. OECD analysts explain that the gap is due not only to women having often worked in lower paid jobs, but also being more likely to have worked part-time and to have had longer career breaks, especially in order to care for children and relatives. Since the amount you pay into your pension impacts how much you can claim, this means women are disadvantaged on several fronts.