The update of the projections consists of: (i) updating the underlying data on service use from the Norwegian Register for Primary Health Care (KPR) from 2017 to 2024; and (ii) replacing Statistics Norway’s population projections from 2018 with the 2024 projections.
The report examines how the projections are affected by alternative assumptions regarding two key sources of uncertainty: age-specific health status among the elderly and informal care provided by relatives outside the recipient’s household. Variations in these assumptions have little impact on the need for 24-hour care places up to 2030, but their importance increases thereafter toward 2060. Improvements in age-specific health status delay the need for care. Compared to a continuation of today’s health conditions, gradual improvements in the health of older people, in isolation, result in significantly weaker growth in the need for 24-hour care places toward 2060. Growth in informal care reduces the need for publicly funded care. Compared to a continuation of our estimate of informal care in 2024, assuming equal percentage growth in public care and informal care leads, in isolation, to a clearly lower growth in the need for 24-hour care places.
In 2024, the estimated total number of round-the-clock care places is about 64,500, distributed across approximately 30,900 long-term residential care places, 7,700 short-term residential care places, and 25,900 residents in around-the-clock staffed care housing. The projections show that this need will increase markedly under all scenarios, driven by a strong growth in the number of people aged 80 and over. By 2060, total estimates range from about 98,000 places in the lowest scenario to nearly 200,000 in the highest. In all scenarios, the need increases substantially over the next 15 years; by 2040, estimates range from 85,000 to nearly 120,000 places.
In line with the standard use of long-term projections in public planning, our projections assume a continuation of current policies. This implies, among other things, that the current age-specific distribution between institutional care and home-based care remains unchanged. For several years, municipalities have been shifting care away from institutions toward care provided in the recipient’s home. If this policy continues, the projections in this report will underestimate the growth in home-based care and overestimate the growth in institutional care. This type of “error” can be observed by comparing the projections in Holmøy, Hjemås, and Haugstveit (2020) for the period 2019–2024 with actual developments.
