As the prevalence of disability increases with age, the impact on the need for assistance and care in various day-to-day living is apparent. It has been established that an increase in the older population has crucial labour market implications around the current and future caregiver workforce (United Nations 2002; Fine 2006; Hugo 2007).
Therefore, the objective of this research is:
To examine the current supply of paid caregivers for the elderly in New Zealand by developing a demographic profile of the caregiver workforce in New Zealand, and projecting the future demand for paid caregivers.
The focus of this paper is on the need for care and availability of formal (paid) caregivers for the elderly. While informal (unpaid) caregivers are an important component, we have not examined this group because of the lack of reliable data sources at the time of this study.
- Section 1 includes an introduction and a summary of existing research.
- Section 2 provides the purpose and research objective.
- Section 3 outlines the methodology, which includes the data sources and statistical methods.
- Section 4 contains the results, which includes the projected growth of New Zealand’s older population, the need for aged care, a snapshot of the caregiver workforce in New Zealand and the projected demand for paid carers for older New Zealanders.
- Section 5 provides conclusions and implications around the need for caregivers in the context of the ageing population in New Zealand.
- The appendices provide additional data tables and detailed background to the analysis.