Where will America find its future caregivers?

Where will America find its future caregivers? (Peterson Foundation)

• This interesting article from economist Tim Taylor summaries much of the debate around the future of care for the elderly – in this case from a US perspective.
• The article makes the points that the pool of unpaid care givers (mainly adult children) is shrinking due to historic lower birth rates and that currently fewer than 1 in 10 individuals over 80 are currently in institutional care. The implications of these facts are that the required spending on (paid) care will need to rise, and rise materially.  
• In addition (again in the US), the paid care system is heavily reliant on immigrant workers (a situation that also exists in some European countries).

Analysis & Comments

• Much of our healthcare spending goes on a relatively small percentage of the population 5% of the population incurs 50% of healthcare costs

• As the World Economic Forum highlights How technology can help us achieve universal healthcare, part of the solution will be via more use of technology

• There is also a strong ESG angle to this debate. The recent World Health Assembly (late May 2019) focused on delivering Universal Health Coverage – a key UN SDG World health meeting to focus on SDG goals