Dutch long-term care use in an ageing population

As in many Western countries, the population in the Netherlands is ageing, leading to increasing use of long-term care. A debate has risen on the tenability of the publicly funded system of this type of care. In this paper we show the upward effect of the ageing of the Dutch population on care use will be mitigated by the downward effect of improving health and increasing education levels. Even so, long-term care will continue to grow in the coming years. According to our calculations, care use will increase by an average of 1.6% annually in the period 2014-2030. This increase stems from the demographic effects of increasing population size (+0.4%) and ageing (+1.6%), partly offset by a decreasing uptake rate (the rate of care use per demographic group; −0.5%). The decrease of the uptake rate is mainly driven by the expectation that the elderly population will be better educated and have fewer physical disabilities. Future expenditure does not only depend on care use, but also on price levels. Extrapolating recent developments, prices are expected to increase. This may lead to an increase of expenditure by 3.5% annually in real terms.