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Abstract
The growth of the elderly population has raised concerns about the future demand for long term care services. Families have been shown to provide a significant amount of care for the elderly and to play an important role in delaying institutionalization. The availability of family care in the future is important for determining the level and type of long term care services needed. This research projects the likelihood that the future elderly will have either a surviving spouse or child available to provide care using multiple decrement life tables and component projection methods.
The marital status of males is found to vary little over the next forty years. Women will experience an increase in the proportion married until 2000 and then a slight downturn. The proportion of elderly with either a child or spouse increases for both males and females; over 88% of white women and 92% of white men over age 85 in 2020 will have some immediate family. In the black population the proportion of elderly with family is lower, but also increases during the period.
Rates of nursing home admittance measured from the Longitudinal Study of Aging are used to estimate nursing home admission rates by age, marital status, and the presence of living children. A slightly lower level of admission is projected after accounting for marital status than that estimated by age-specific rates alone. However, the presence of children is not found to significantly alter the projected use of nursing homes. Although the probability of an elderly person having surviving family members is likely to increase over time, the increase cannot be depended upon to significantly alter the level of use of institutional long term care.
