The marketisation of long-term care in East Asia

The rapidly ageing population, changing socio-demographic patterns, and economic pressures, provide the rationale for care systems progressively shaped by a growing market in a global context. The marketisation of long-term care is a shared trend among many East Asian societies. This chapter focuses on the increasingly substantial role of the market in the mixed economy of care in East Asia. It discusses how markets and market mechanisms are applied in long-term care in East Asian care systems, such as contracting out to private providers, long-term care insurance, care vouchers, cash for care benefits, and direct purchasing of older people and their families in care markets. This chapter also examines the impacts of these marketisation strategies on the care regimes, care markets and participants and explores the factors that might explain different outcomes. Consequently, it contributes to the theoretical discussions on different marketisation models in contemporary East Asia.