Elderly care recipients and potential informal recipients in Europe 2020

Many western European countries rely heavily on homecare or informal methods to care for the elderly. In 2020, nearly three million German elderly people potentially received informal care, while 1.65 million received home care, and 0.7 million were formally cared for by an institution. Elderly care in Italy and France also relied heavily on informal care.

Why does Europe rely on informal care?

Informal care is typically delivered within families and households and while difficult to quantify is very common. Indeed, an important share of healthcare expenditure is spent on long-term residential care in European countries. Therefore, some governments encourage and incentivize informal care to reduce healthcare expenditure by the state. For instance, Italian workers are granted up to 35 days of paid leave per year to provide care to dependent relatives while French employees are entitled to 20 days of paid leave. In addition, the extent of informal care can also be the result of economic factors. In 2019, the average monthly cost of care homes reached three thousand euros in some European countries.

A sustainable strategy for European healthcare systems?

The elderly population is expected to grow significantly in Europe. In 2020, Italy had notably the highest old-age dependency ratio in Europe, with a rate of 36.4 people aged over 65 to 100 people of working age. Furthermore, the ability of many families to assist elderly relatives is decreased with the loss of multi-generational household culture in modern Western Europe. Finally, some health conditions linked to elderly age require specialist nursing and a residential care setting. Therefore, although a heavy reliance on informal care can reduce healthcare costs, it could be a risky strategy to hold on in the long run.