Ageing and the Development of Community Care in East Asia – What Way Forward?

With the ageing of societies, there is growing interest among also East Asian countries to implement new policies of long term care. Home care arrangements now predominate in OECD countries, reflecting older people’s preferences for home based help and care but also as an attempt to reduce reliance on expensive institutional care, particularly for recipients with lower levels of disability (OECD, 2005). Countries without extensive formal community-based care systems such as the East Asian countries are in a demographic situation which requires them to consider how to organize and provide adequate, affordable and quality community-based care, in both urban and rural settings, and in a financially sustainable and culturally diverse way. They can draw on the lessons learned from other countries in the development of national community-based care models, but new models of community care must develop according to their respective cultural, political and social background and taking into account financial and systemic capabilities. This paper investigates what models of community care have been implemented or is under way in 9 East Asian countries, outlining their characteristics and the challenges forward.