Impacts of an Ageing Population on Social Systems – Selected Issues

Abstract

Population ageing impacts on all social systems. The aim of this paper is to characterise the impacts of an ageing population on the social services and healthcare systems in the Czech Republic. These are the systems that will be most affected by the growing number of people of post-productive age. For social services, an estimate of the evolution of the number of beneficiaries of care allowance up to 2030 was drawn up on the basis of an analysis of the evolution in the number of beneficiaries of this social benefit by sex, age and degree of dependency in the years 2007 to 2016; for healthcare, an estimate of health insurance companies’ expected expenditure on healthcare was drawn up on the basis of an analysis of the evolution of spending on healthcare by health insurance companies, broken down by clients’ sex and age. The calculations clearly show that both these systems are unprepared for tackling the consequences of population ageing, so the search should begin now for new solutions that would help ensure that both social services and healthcare continue to be provided to clients to the existing standard in the coming period.