Long-Term Care Services in 4 European Countries. Labour Markets and other aspects

This book brings together articles by authors from four European countries (Finland, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain) which reflect trends in the search for new combinations between institutional, family and community agents to provide high quality long-term care services. The articles also show the diversity of the national landscapes of care services as well as the variety of possible solutions.

The book is the fruit of a Dutch-Spanish seminar organised by the XREAP and Radboud University, held in Barcelona in October 2010 to discuss the situation of the care service sector, the respective labour markets, and the policy strategies needed to adapt the long-term care sector to the challenges outlined above. The organisers decided to publish the presentations in an electronic book and also to include other articles on the issue written by German and Finnish researchers and practitioners.

The book is divided into two parts: the long-term care labour markets in Germany, the Netherlands and Spain, and articles about specific issues on long-term care services that can diminish future labour market problems in countries where labour market will become tight as service quality, the use of information and communication technologies, and the implementation of network principles to organise care provision. The second part, on organisation and quality in the long-term care sector, includes three articles from Finland, Germany and Spain.

The book provides information about a range of strategies to meet the common challenges of ageing societies in the area of long-term care. The articles reflect different strategies to redress the balance between formal and informal care at the societal level, focusing on the issue from the perspectives of lifelong learning, quality assurance, and work organisation. As such, the book contributes to European and national debates about the future of long-term care services as an integral part of the transition to an ageing knowledge society. This challenge is approached not from a pessimistic costs perspective, but as an opportunity for positive societal development.