Population ageing, reflected in the increasing number and share of older people in the total population, leads to a growing number of dependent seniors that require care. The supply of institutional care in Poland only fulfils a very small fraction of the care needs of older people– they are primarily met by members of family networks, whose size is expected to diminish mainly due to changes in the family model. The aim of this project is to prepare projections of future demand for care among people aged 65 years and over in Poland up to the year 2030.
The demand for care is defined as the number of people requiring care based on their health status. Including information about the elderly’s living arrangements in the projection , which allows for approximation of potential care resources within family networks, is supposed to facilitate the estimation of future demand for formal care (provided by public or private institutions) and informal care (provided mainly by family members).
The goal of the thesis is achieved through the following research tasks:
- exploration of the health and family situation of older people in Poland and their changes over time based on available empirical data;
- estimation of the parameters reflecting the older peoples’ dynamics of health and living arrangement status for the population projection model;
- preparation of a population projection model including the health status and living arrangements of the elderly.
This quantitative study makes use of various sources of data, both at individual and aggregated levels, and applies multi-state models and microsimulation as research tools.