To differentiate between the elderly and the disabled persons in long-term care or not? A comparative analysis of legal regulation in Finland, France, Germany, Japan and Spain

It is not uncommon that a country’s social welfare system includes separate long-term care schemes for the elderly and for the disabled persons. Often, the separation is based on an age criterion, i.e. if disability is only acquired after certain age, the person is not eligible for special long-term care services for the disabled. However, age-related criteria are problematic on the basis of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The exclusion of a person from special services simply based on their age violates the principle of non-discrimination. At the same time, as the proportion of elderly population in many countries has risen drastically, it is not necessarily financially realistic to assume that the elderly should have the equal right to special disability services which are often free-of-charge or with lower co-payments. This article analyses the policies in five countries whose aim is to solve the discrepancy between the non-discrimination principle and financial sustainability on long-term care schemes. It is argued that despite the different policy choices aimed at tackling the problem of economic sustainability of long-term care schemes, almost all countries are nevertheless still forced to resort to some kind of age criteria.