Benefit structures for persons dependent on long-term care in Austria

Abstract

Long-term care dependency in Austria has been recognised as an independent social risk (only) since 1993. Up to then, only isolated and rather dissimilar benefits and services existed which were partly based on the causality principle or which were granted within the context of social assistance (Sozialhilfe)-and here particularly in the form of benefits in kind. The most commonly paid cash benefit related to long-term care at the time was referred to as “helplessness allowance” within the context of the statutory pension insurance. This was an allowance in addition to the monthly pension that was granted in the case of a certain minimum need for “maintenance and help”; the amount (of a converted monthly sum of approx. € 217 in its latest figures) was, however, independent of the actual need.