CARE SHORTAGES IN LATER LIFE: THE ROLE OF INDIVIDUAL AND CONTEXTUAL VARIABLES IN FLANDERS, BELGIUM

Abstract

Like many other European countries, Belgium has a strong policy of ‘ageing in place’. Older people are invited to stay as long as possible in their own home/environment. This policy is instigated by shortages in nursing homes and preferences of the older people themselves. Although Belgium is considered to have an effective social security system, 6.4 % of the older people living at home report care shortages. In order to analyze these care shortages, we used - data from our own survey, the Belgian Ageing Studies (BAS). In over 100 cities in Flanders, Belgium, a stratified sample was drawn from the population data, using gender and age as stratification. A sample of 64280 residents aged sixty and over was interviewed between January 2004 and December 2009. The results show that both individual, socio-demographic and contextual variables like regional differences, living conditions and housing are needed to explain care shortages among older people.

Keywords

• care shortages, ageing in place, housing arrangements, older people, environmental gerontology

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