Care Poverty: When Older People's Needs Remain Unmet

This open-access book examines the outcomes of long-term care services for older people, focusing on unmet needs and the need for a theoretical framework to guide research and policy development. It outlines three domains of care poverty and differentiates between methods of measuring unmet needs, comparing findings across social inequalities and care policy models.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 250 pages
Publication date: 04 May 2022
Publisher: Springer Nature Switzerland AG

This open-access book revolutionizes the research focus of social policy scholars and long-term care researchers, shifting their attention from comparative descriptions of care systems, primarily emphasizing expenditures and volumes of long-term care services, to outcomes, particularly examining whether older individuals receive the support they require. Without a comprehensive understanding of which needs and social groups are currently inadequately covered, it becomes challenging to guide policy development effectively.

The book presents a groundbreaking theoretical framework to guide future research endeavors and public discussions on the issue of unmet long-term care needs. By expanding the current discourse, it recognizes inadequate care within its societal and policy contexts, taking into account structural issues and policy designs. Kröger categorizes three distinct domains of care poverty: personal care poverty, practical care poverty, and socio-emotional care poverty. He also distinguishes between primary methods used to measure unmet needs.

This comprehensive book summarizes the existing knowledge on the prevalence, factors, and consequences of unmet care needs, comparing them comparatively in the context of social inequalities and care policy models of different welfare states. It serves as a valuable resource for students and scholars of social policy, social work, social gerontology, sociology, and political science, as well as for all disciplines within the field of social sciences that study welfare state policies and care for older individuals.

Weight: 356g
Dimension: 148 x 209 x 18 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9783030972455
Edition number: 1st ed. 2022