The social long-term care insurance model: comparing actor configurations across countries and time

Abstract To date, social long-term care insurance (SLTCI) systems have been introduced in six countries globally: the Netherlands, Israel, Germany, Japan, Luxembourg and South Korea. Applying an actor-centred, multi-dimensional framework and fuzzy-set analysis, the present article investigates the typical characteristics and variations of these SLTCI schemes at introduction and today. In short, we find that the SLTCI model features dominant social contribution financing, a mix of for- and non-profit providers, and state regulation. In light of the relevance of corporate self-regulation often associated with social insurance systems, the dominance of state regulation is unexpected. The analysis also reveals considerable variance between cases, most notably concerning the extent of private individual actors’ involvement. While geographical proximity of countries does not explain differences between SLTCI systems, “temporal clusters” seem to partly drive the variation of SLTCI actor configurations.