Long-term care for older people

In the end of the 18th century, Thomas Malthus maintained “the power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man” (Malthus, 1798). He believed that if unchecked by misery and vice, population growth would exhaust global food resources. He even predicted that this would happen in the middle of the 19th century. His prediction failed spectacularly, but nonetheless it helped him to make a good living out of it. Today, many politicians seem to follow Malthus’ strategy of crisis-mongering. It is a commonplace in political rhetoric that the increase of the share of older people will result in a crisis. Indeed, population ageing is creating serious implications for macroeconomic and financial stability: labour shortages, wage inflation, global capital shortfall, unsustainability of pay-as-you-go pension schemes, and growing health and long-term care expenditure. This data brief looks at the effects of population ageing on long-term care for older people (LTC).