For more than a decade we have heard warnings about the aging population and the threat that the growing numbers of older people pose for the health care system. “Aging in place” is promoted in high income countries as a solution. However with the majority of both women and men in the labour force combined with the increasing numbers of older people living with complex health issues, there is at the very least a continuing need for residential care that provides twenty-four-hour supports.
For-profit delivery and managerial practices taken from the for-profit sector have been promoted as means for governments to reduce costs and increase choices in these residential care homes. At the same time, as Forbes puts it, today’s best business opportunities can be found in population aging, including in residential care.
Building on networks and research growing out of a seven-year interdisciplinary, international project on long-term residential care, this symposium will bring together papers from Sweden, Canada, the UK and Germany to look at the extent of marketization and the consequences for those who provide and those who need such care. Below is a list of the first authors of each paper and the issues the paper will address.
Convener and discussant
Pat Armstrong, York University, Toronto, Canada, patarmst@yorku.ca