A Long-term Projection of Demand for At-home Care Services in Japan (in Japanese)

This study takes advantage of micro-level information to make a projection of demand for at-home care services in Japan. We have observed a rapid increase in demand for long-term care services after 2001, a large part of which came from an increase in demand for at-home care services. Thus, an estimation of future at-home care should be useful for predicting trends in the long-term care market and be an important base for policy planning. The increase in demand for at-home care comes from four main areas: (1) the change in the number of those who need care, (2) the share of those with requirement certification, (3) the share of those who actually receive any type of care services, and (4) the cost of care per an eligible person. We utilize our unique survey on households with a care receiver to estimate (2), (3), and (4). Our empirical results report that the share of those who receive requirement certification out of all who need care will be close to 100 percent in 2005. Moreover, a longer period after receiving certification will stimulate the share of care receivers who really use care services through insurance and cost of care per person. Based on those estimates, our projection reports that the amount of at-home care demand in 2010 will be 3.4 trillion yen, or about 2.6 times as large as that in 2002. Our results demonstrate a rapid increase in at-home care services in the near future. We should seriously consider institutional reform in the public LTC insurance industry to provide sufficient services with higher quality under severe budget constraints.