Long-Term Care in Latin America and the Caribbean? Theory and Policy Considerations

Martín Caruso Bloeck, Sebastian Galiani and Pablo Ibarraran ()
Additional contact information
Martín Caruso Bloeck: Universidad Nacional de la Plata

No 11035, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper discusses theoretical and practical issues related to long-term care (LTC) services in Latin America. Demand for these services will rise as the region undergoes a swift demographic transition from its currently young population to a rapidly aging one, especially since the region's aging cohorts are more prone to experience a decline in their functional and physical abilities than elderly people elsewhere in the world. We argue that private insurance markets are ill-equipped to provide coverage to meet the need for LTC, while the amount of personal savings required to afford self-insurance is prohibitively high. We study how developed economies have dealt with the issue of LTC and pay special attention to the most salient features of their LTC programs. We then direct the discussion to Latin America, where LTC may not be an immediate priority, but governments are likely to encourage the development of LTC programs as demand for them steadily grows. In particular, policymakers are probably going to focus initially on LTC programs for the poor and the vulnerable, for whom LTC affordability is a greater problem. We therefore study how basic elements of policy design affect cost-effectiveness of LTC programs by means of a formal model. Our study shows that pro-poor programs are more cost effective when people have the option to receive cash subsidies, and the availability of in-kind and in-cash choices reduces program costs overall. We argue that our findings are natural starting points to start thinking about LTC program development in the region.

Keywords: population aging; long-term care insurance; long-term care; Latin America (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J14 N36 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 45 pages
Date: 2017-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age, nep-cta, nep-hea, nep-ias and nep-lam
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Published - published in: Economica, 2019, 20 (1), 1 - 32

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp11035.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Long-Term Care in Latin America and the Caribbean: Theory and Policy Considerations (2019)
Working Paper: Long-term care in Latin America and the Caribbean: theory and policy considerations (2019)
Working Paper: Long-Term Care in Latin America and the Caribbean?: Theory and Policy Considerations (2017)
Working Paper: Long-Term Care in Latin America and the Caribbean? Theory and Policy Considerations (2017)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11035

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().