Substituting professional with informal care? A response to “how to handle gerontocracy”

Abstract

Purpose: The comment addresses the idea of substituting professional elder care with informal care provided by early retirees to save economic costs. Design/methodology/approach: The comment arose from reading “How to handle gerontocracy”, scientific research and critical, analytical thinking. Findings: While having early pensioners deliver elderly care has positive implications, substituting professional with informal care must be challenged. First, the “unused reservoir” of early pensioners might be overestimated, as they often already have care responsibilities. Second, the substitution of professional services is already happening due to staff shortages. Third, untrained caregivers might struggle to provide the needed care quality, resulting in worse health outcomes (and higher follow-up costs). Finally, there are concerns of social sustainability: because of role expectations, mainly women may take on care tasks, reinforcing social inequality. Also, the third sector might lose hours of volunteer work. Originality/value: The comment appeals to a critically rethinking of the idea of substituting professional services with informal care provision and argues for differentiated and well-tailored policy measures, taking into account the complex nature of (informal) caregiving.