WP 10.3
16 October 2013
UNITED NATIONS STATISTICAL COMMISSION
and ECONOMIC COMMISSION FOR EUROPE
STATISTICAL OFFICE OF THE
EUROPEAN UNION (EUROSTAT)
Joint Eurostat/UNECE Work Session on Demographic Projections
organised in cooperation with Istat
(29-31 October 2013, Rome, Italy)
Item 10 – Household Projections
Household Projections and Welfare
Gian Carlo Blangiardo, Università di Milano Bicocca
Alessio Menonna, Fondazione Ismu
Elisa Barbiano di Belgiojoso, Università di Milano Bicocca
Natale Forlani, Ministero del Lavoro e delle Politiche Sociali
HOUSEHOLD PROJECTIONS AND WELFARE
Gian Carlo Blangiardo1, Alessio Menonna2, Elisa Barbiano di Belgiojoso3, Natale Forlani4
1. Introduction
The socio-demographic changes experienced by Italy in recent decades (AA.VV., 2011) – e.g.
ageing, changes in the family structure - have had a profound effect on both the labour market and
the welfare system.
More specifically, like many other countries, Italy is experiencing an ageing process, so that in
the next twenty years, there will be a dramatic increase in the number of persons aged 65 and over
(+34%). According to available estimates (Istat, 2011) there will be nearly 16 million of them by
2030, a significant number of whom will be oldest-old (3 million aged 85 and over).
Official statistics (Indagini Multiscopo) indicate that multi-dwellings are more and more rare
(only 1.2% of households), since elderly people are more likely to live alone than in the past.
Suffice it to say that according to the Census of 1971, 9% of men and 22% of women aged 65 and
over were living alone, while at the Census of 2001, these percentages were 13.7% and 37%
respectively. Furthermore, according to recent Italian household projections (Blangiardo et al.,
2012), by 2030 there will be more than 4.5 million people aged 65 and over who will be living
alone, which is equivalent to 7.7% of the total population. From a family perspective, this means
that nearly one household in five will consist of an elderly person living alone.
Leaving aside other implications of these changes in the family set-up, the cause of this trend is
also to be found in the continuing difference in male and female survival levels (by 2030, men will
have a life expectancy of 82.2 years, compared to 87.5 for women) which will obviously add to the
increasing number of elderly people living alone. There is likely to be an accompanying increase in
the need for nursing home and care assistance.
Another important change which has had a significant impact on the welfare system is the
increase in female activity rates, causing a reduction in the number of housewives, and a consequent
need for domestic work and care services to be carried out by paid workers (Parreñas, 2001) since
state-funded services for elderly people and children are scarce and expensive. As a direct
consequence, therefore, the demand for child carers and in particular, for caregivers for the elderly,
seems bound to increase significantly in the future.
Moreover, as is well-known, home caregivers are more and more often recruited from among
immigrants, due to the lack of supply among the younger Italian generations (e.g. Fullin and
Vercelloni, 2009; Zanfrini, 2011; Ambrosini, 2001). According to recent estimates (Censis and
1
Università di Milano Bicocca, Dipartimento di Statistica e Metodi Quantitativi, Milan, Italy. Email:
[email protected] (contact author)
2
Fondazione Ismu, Milan, Italy. Email:
[email protected]
3
Università di Milano Bicocca, Dipartimento di Statistica e Metodi Quantitativi, Milan, Italy. Email:
[email protected]
4
Direttore Generale Immigrazione, Ministero del Lavoro e delle Politiche Sociali.
Ismu, 2013), only 22.7% of domestic workers are Italian, the majority being foreigners. However,
some indications of change have been noticed, especially in the South: due to the negative effects of
the economic crisis on the Italian labour market, the percentage of Italian women among home
caregivers is gradually increasing.
Given this social-demographic background, this paper aims at presenting an original method for
estimating, on the one hand, the extra demand for caregivers of the elderly and similar professions
(care provided to disabled or non-autonomous people) on the part of Italian households due to
demographic changes, and on the other , the possible supply of migrants5. The estimates integrate
official statistics and data from ad hoc surveys. Furthermore, by comparing the supply and demand
of home caregivers, some interesting considerations and helpful recommendations arise which may
be useful to policy-makers for planning purposes.
The rest of the paper is as follows: section 2 describes the method used to estimate supply, while
the estimate of demand is presented in section 3. Section 4 contains the conclusions.
Figure 1 – Scheme of the supply module
STAGE 1:
Inflow of foreigners toward
Italy
Step 1: Surplus/deficit in labour
force for each country
Step 2: transition from surplus
to inflows towards Italy
Step 3: combination of inflows
with family reunion
STAGE 3:
Supply of possible home
caregivers
Net inflow by sex
and citizenship at
regional level
Step 1: incidence rate of home
caregivers among foreigners
population
output
Step 2: distribution of home
caregivers according to
citizenship
output
STAGE 2:
from national to
regional level
output
Offer of home
caregivers by sex
and citizenship
Net inflow by
sex and
citizenship
5
The model was set up as part of a study carried out by Censis and Ismu Foundation on behalf of the Ministry of Labour
and Social Policy, which aimed to estimate supply and demand for home care in the next thirty years in the following
Italian regions: Campania, Calabria, Puglia and Sicily. More details are available on the website of the Ministry of
Labour and Social Policy.
2. The supply of foreign caregivers
Estimates of the additional supply have been obtained on the basis of the hypothesis that the
latter will coincide with the availability of manpower for the care sector that will be generated by
annual inflows towards Italy.
The procedure consists of three stages:
1) the estimation of inflows of foreign population towards Italy, by sex and citizenship, on a
five-year basis (2010-2014, 2015-2019… 2030-2034);
2) the estimation of specific regional inflows, on the basis of the national level and according
to the regional trends of the latest official projections (Istat, 2011);
3) the transformation of such flows into regional supply of home caregivers.
Although this procedure aims at estimating the potential supply of foreign home caregivers, the
intermediate output produced at each stage also provides useful information for planning
purposes.
2.1 Stage 1: estimation of inflow of foreign population towards Italy
Given the great variety of foreign citizenships living in Italy, only thirty countries were selected,
corresponding to nearly 90% of the overall foreign population in the Population Register as of
January 1st, 2011. More specifically, twenty countries were selected according to their ranking in
inflows towards Italy,6 plus ten from among the main countries with the highest percentage of
workers in the family-care sector7.
This stage, as shown in figure 1, was composed of three steps which are described below.
Step 1: Surplus/deficit in labour force
For any country, a surplus or deficit in the labour force indicates the need either to reduce the
number of jobs or create a fresh supply of workers. Otherwise, if there are no changes in the
national economy, migration outflows/inflows will be required to offset the demographic
imbalance. Therefore, according to the hypothesis of invariance of the potential employment of
local labour markets, the surplus in active population in the sending countries towards Italy can be
considered as a push factor for estimating future labour force flows from abroad.
Thus, firstly, the surplus or deficit in the labour force,
was estimated for each of
the thirty selected countries. Entries into and exits from the labour force were calculated on the
basis of the population,
, - by sex, age class and country8 - and the increase (positive or
negative) in the activity rates (AR) between two consecutive age group9 with
separately for each country, as follows:
6
According to the citizenship distribution of foreigners resident in Italy as of January 1st, 2011 (Istat).
This information has been derived from PerLa Survey (Ismu, Censis and Iprs, 2010).
8
Medium variant of world projection (UN, 2010).
9
Activity rates are available in the database of the ILO: http://laborsta.ilo.org/ orhttp://www.ilo.org/ilostat .
7
,
[1],
where AR(t,t+4) is the average annual activity rate from t to t+4,
Table 1 – Surplus/deficit in labour force (thousands) 2010-2034
Countries
2010-14
Rumania
Albania
Morocco
China
Ukraine
Philippines
Moldova
India
Poland
Tunisia
Peru
Ecuador
Egypt
Macedonia
Bangladesh
Sri Lanka
Senegal
Pakistan
Nigeria
SMK (Serbia-MontenegroKosovo)
Russia
Dominican Republic
Somalia
Georgia
Belarus
Bulgaria
Brazil
Cuba
Bolivia
Slovakia
141
108
1,300
33,703
92
6,142
48
59,431
-5
330
1,860
841
3,451
28
10,167
532
1,133
10,062
9,792
58
-154
534
586
117
19
-62
8,149
119
738
31
Five-year period
2015-19 2020-24 2025-29
Male and Female
-84
-212
-282
78
43
19
1,130
973
821
10,906
-4,442
-11,021
-390
-487
-423
6,373
6,146
6,106
10
-10
-10
56,418
52,446
49,015
-385
-488
-412
227
154
122
1,784
1,642
1,444
818
757
680
3,254
3,231
3,181
7
-9
-19
9,684
8,217
6,554
438
448
420
1,289
1,451
1,553
9,752
9,702
9,616
11,280
12,870
14,580
3
-2,057
497
677
43
-116
-112
7,226
-7
768
-36
-27
-1,783
462
778
-14
-133
-121
5,220
-159
766
-67
-46
-719
421
891
-34
-83
-105
3,233
-276
757
-74
2030-34
-283
7
737
-21,030
-370
5,924
-2
44,297
-450
93
1,214
584
2,931
-27
4,976
314
1,622
9,263
16,373
-86
-531
369
1,032
-32
-67
-112
1,783
-279
744
-99
Source: processing on UN and ILO data
According to our outcomes (Table 1), overall, the selected countries will show a decreasing
surplus in the labour force from over 149 million to just under 69 million. Nevertheless, there are
some peculiarities: one group of countries (i.e. China, Rumania, Slovakia and Ukraine), which have
usually had a surplus in the labour force, will move into deficit within a short period of time (5-10
years), while Nigeria, Somalia and Senegal will continue to increase their high surplus in the labour
force. Thus, within twenty years, India, Nigeria, Philippines, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Egypt, Senegal,
Brazil, Peru and Somalia will show the highest surplus of labour force. This surplus might also
constitute a push factor towards Italy.
Step 2: transition from the surplus to the possible inflow towards Italy
The surplus estimated above may be considered as the possible outflow for work reasons from
sending areas. By definition, countries with a deficit in their labour force have no outflow of
migrant workers. Among those with a positive surplus during the interval t, t+4, we proceeded to
estimate the amount of inflows towards Italy by citizenship and sex. In order to do so, we first
estimated a coefficient of attraction towards Italy, as a ratio of the growth in the resident foreign
population with citizenship c, registered in Italy during the period 2006-2010 (source: Istat), and the
surplus in the corresponding country of origin in the same period; a surplus determined using the
same procedure described above. Hence, by applying these coefficients of attraction to the expected
future surplus10, we estimated the entire working inflows towards Italy by citizenship and sex,
As a result of this procedure, we obtained the first rough estimates of future inflows, grouped by
sex and citizenship on a five-year basis, due to the possible surplus in labour force in the main
sending countries or in those countries which have the highest percentage of workers in Italy in the
care sector.
Step 3: revision of previous estimates taking into account the labour force and family reunions
Taking into account that inflows are generally made up of both workers and partners or offspring
of the first family member emigrating, we revised the estimations produced at step 2. As regards
- by sex and citizenship - to the
working flows, we applied a set of coefficients,
previous estimations,
. These coefficients represent the quota of work permits out of
the number of work and family permits issued in the period 2006-2010 (Istat). We hypothesised a
turnover between the quota of inflows for family and work reasons: a high immigration ratio of
workers will then be followed by a lower inflow for work reasons and conversely by a higher
inflow for family reunions. Hence, coefficients are estimated on the basis of a recursive procedure
and therefore the percentage of the next period is a function of the previous one:
In order to estimate the additional family reunion flows, the complementary values of such
coefficients
are applied to the increase in the resident population registered in
the previous quinquennial.
are calculated as follows:
Hence, the net inflows,
10
Properly adjusted in each period to take into account the variability and different trends between countries.
[3]
Where:
In order to calculate the population stock at the end of any period, the flows were eventually
adjusted taking into account natural increase (births and deaths) and acquisitions of citizenship.
Output of stage 1
At the end of the first stage of the estimation process, we obtained the number of foreigners
residing in Italy as of January 1st, 2011, 2015, 2020, 2025, 2030 and 2035 by sex and citizenship.
These outcomes can be calculated using two different population targets: the first regards persons
with foreign citizenship at time t (target A population), while the second considers the target A
population plus all the individuals who will have become Italians since 2011 (target B population).
The latter group may represent the maximum estimate, and the difference is basically due to the
number of foreigners who might acquire Italian citizenship over the next two decades.
According to population target A, as of January 1st, 2035, there will be 9.6 million foreigners
resident in Italy, of whom 8.5 million from the 30 selected countries. If the foreigners who might
acquire Italian citizenship are also considered, there should be nearly three more million residents.
The acquisition of Italian citizenship should affect more men than women, and the effects of this
should be evident within 15-20 years and should influence the number of the residents with
Rumanian, Ukrainian, Polish or Bulgarian citizenship.
Overall, net inflows (workers and family reunions) will decrease markedly due to reductions in
the surplus in the labour force that will come about in the main sending countries. The decreasing
trend should be extremely rapid, with annual net inflows halving within twenty years. More
specifically, inflows from Eastern Europe should run out quickly, while those from the Philippines,
India, Ecuador, Pakistan and Egypt should remain constant and the number of emigrants from
Senegal, Nigeria and Somalia should actually increase. The main effect of these changes will be a
completely different distribution of the citizenship of the new emigrates. Whereas nowadays, 25%
of net inflow towards Italy is from Rumania, 10% from Albania and Morocco, 5% from China and
4% from India, Ukraine and Moldova, in twenty years’ time the main sending country will be
Morocco (with 16% of inflows) followed by India (10%), Albania (9%), Philippines (8%), Senegal
(7%) and Rumania only 5%. As a consequence, the composition of the resident population should
be slightly modified.
Table 2 – Net inflows (workers and family reunions) according to country of origin. Mean annual
figure 2011-2034 (thousands).
Country
2011-14
Rumania
79.4
Five-year period
2015-19 2020-24 2025-29
34.3
Male and Female
18.7
11.0
2030-34
7.1
Albania
Morocco
China
Ukraine
Philippines
Moldova
India
Poland
Tunisia
Peru
Ecuador
Egypt
Macedonia
Bangladesh
Sri Lanka
Senegal
Pakistan
Nigeria
Serbia-Montenegro-Kosovo
Russia
Dominican Republic
Somalia
Georgia
Belarus
Bulgaria
Brazil
Cuba
Bolivia
Slovakia
Total 30 countries
Other countries
All countries
32.8
33.1
16.5
12.8
11.3
13.0
13.9
7.6
6.2
8.3
6.6
7.2
6.2
7.1
6.6
6.5
6.6
4.2
4.7
2.3
1.8
0.7
1.4
0.6
3.8
3.8
1.3
1.6
0.8
308.8
48.2
357.0
26.3
30.8
13.5
8.0
11.8
9.6
15.2
4.0
5.8
7.9
6.7
6.8
3.8
5.5
5.6
7.6
7.1
4.1
3.9
1.6
1.5
0.7
1.8
0.4
1.7
3.3
1.0
1.6
0.4
232.4
36.3
268.7
20.2
27.9
8.4
4.2
11.8
5.1
14.9
2.5
4.6
7.0
6.6
6.3
2.5
4.3
5.0
8.5
6.9
4.3
2.9
1.0
1.3
0.9
0.9
0.2
1.0
2.7
0.6
1.4
0.3
182.7
28.5
211.2
15.3
24.7
5.3
2.3
11.7
2.7
14.3
1.7
3.8
6.3
6.2
6.1
1.8
3.4
4.5
9.2
6.7
4.6
2.4
0.7
1.2
1.0
0.5
0.1
0.6
2.1
0.5
1.3
0.2
152.2
23.7
175.9
12.3
22.2
3.8
1.4
11.6
1.9
13.4
1.4
3.2
5.5
5.6
5.7
1.5
2.7
3.9
9.7
6.5
5.1
2.1
0.6
1.1
1.1
0.2
0.1
0.4
1.6
0.4
1.3
0.1
133.5
20.8
154.2
Source: own elaboration
2.2 Stage 2: transition from the national level to sub-national level
For planning purposes, the sub-national level is essential. We therefore need a procedure which
enables us to distribute the overall estimate at the sub-national level. Regional inflows are computed
by taking national inflows and applying to them the probability of reaching region r conditional on
being of citizenship c on a five-year basis,
. This probability is computed as follows:
[4]
Since
can be approximated by the ratio between the increase of foreigners resident in
Where
by the distribution
region r and the overall increase estimated according to Istat data;
according to citizenship of foreigners resident in region r and
by the incidence of inflows from
country c on the overall amount of inflows. As input, we therefore need both the estimates of
inflows of foreign population at the national level by sex and citizenship,
- see above
st
(step 1) - and the foreign population projected by Istat as of January 1 in the years 2011-2035 by
region, sex and citizenship.
Output of stage 2
As a result of this stage, we obtained the number of foreigners residing in each Italian region as
of January 1st 2011, 2015, 2020, 2025, 2030 and 2035, by sex and citizenship. These estimates are
distinguished according to the two different target populations (A and B) defined previously. As
usual, the target B group may be considered as the maximum regional amount.
Table 3 – Net inflows by area of residence. Mean annual figure: 2011-2034 (thousands).
Area
2011-14
North West
North East
Centre
South and Islands
Total
125.0
88.9
94.5
48.5
357.0
Five-year period
2015-19 2020-24 2025-29
Male and Female
100.9
68.4
67.4
32.0
268.7
83.3
53.1
51.9
23.0
211.2
71.4
43.9
42.8
17.9
175.9
2030-34
63.4
38.9
37.2
14.8
154.2
Source: own elaboration
2.3 Stage 3: transition from inflows to supply of home caregivers
In order to estimate the home caregiver offer (HC) by sex and citizenship on a five-year basis at
the regional level, we applied the probability of being a home caregiver conditional on having
citizenship c to the regional inflows of each specific nationality (by sex) i.e.:
[5]
Where the last factor can be obtained as follows:
Since, applying the formula of Bayes, the joint probability of having citizenship c and being a home
caregiver is estimated as follows:
.
Thus for each of the three terms of [6], the most suitable and updated source was identified as ad
hoc surveys on migrants living in Italy.
First, the probability of coming from country c as the ratio between estimations of net regional
inflows of foreign population (absolute values) by sex and citizenship obtained as an output of the
previous stage
and the total inflow (separately for each sex):
[7]
(for any sex):
Second, the quota of each nationality among home caregivers
[8]
This information was obtained from the outcomes of a specific survey conducted by Censis and
Ismu during 2012 (“sample of workers” 2012).
:
Third, the incidence rate of home caregivers among the foreign population
[9].
The latter was identified on the basis of the results of recent surveys carried out in Italy. More
specifically, the following two surveys were considered: PerLa Survey, carried out during 2009 by
Ismu, Censis and Iprs, aiming at describing the professional trajectories of migrants (Ismu, Censis
and Iprs, 2010), and the Integration Indexes Survey, conducted during 2009 by Ismu, aiming at
estimating the level of integration of migrants living in Italy (Cesareo and Blangiardo, 2009).
Output of stage 3
As a result of this third stage of the estimation process, we obtained the supply of foreign home
caregivers on a five-year basis by sex, region and citizenship. As for stage 1, these estimates can be
distinguished according to the two different target populations (A and B), previously defined, and
target B group may be considered, once again, as the maximum amount.
Table 4 –Supply of home caregivers at the national level by country of origin. Mean annual figure:
2011-2034
Country
Five-year period
2011-14 2015-19 2020-24 2025-29 2030-34
Male and Female
19,283
10,574
7,179
5,260
4,175
Rumania
3,582
2,973
2,352
1,877
1,605
Albania
5,923
5,941
5,686
5,319
4,998
Morocco
China
2,103
1,915
1,389
1,095
934
Ukraine
Philippines
Moldova
India
Poland
Tunisia
Peru
Ecuador
Egypt
Macedonia
Bangladesh
Sri Lanka
Senegal
Pakistan
Nigeria
Serbia-Montenegro-Kosovo
Russia
Dominican Republic
Somalia
Georgia
Belarus
Bulgaria
Brazil
Cuba
Bolivia
Slovakia
Total 30 countries
Other countries
All countries
7,312
6,079
6,788
2,269
3,212
1,432
4,372
1,842
501
3,005
711
1,730
957
678
1,416
2,075
1,420
564
161
616
400
1,384
2,095
140
743
202
82,996
13,321
96,316
5,089
6,312
5,531
2,559
1,870
1,520
4,539
1,946
469
2,204
619
1,564
1,121
828
1,488
1,926
1,034
499
169
801
254
682
1,797
113
763
127
67,227
10,561
77,788
2,966
6,368
3,377
2,641
1,277
1,233
4,328
1,961
461
1,621
545
1,451
1,270
915
1,626
1,588
676
447
200
425
151
438
1,449
78
695
81
54,873
8,566
63,439
1,880
6,407
2,232
2,680
968
1,042
4,075
1,898
457
1,306
481
1,369
1,418
1,012
1,803
1,410
496
412
225
238
99
308
1,126
60
664
58
47,675
7,329
55,003
1,318
6,413
1,621
2,620
806
916
3,766
1,780
441
1,133
420
1,236
1,530
1,032
2,006
1,316
405
384
251
143
72
239
857
51
649
46
43,163
6,546
49,709
Source: own elaboration
Table 5 –Supply of home caregivers at national level by area of residence. Mean annual figure,
years: 2011-2034 (thousands)
Macro area
Five-year period
2011-14 2015-19 2020-24 2025-29 2030-34
Male and Female
33.5
28.3
24.0
21.3
19.5
North West
22.8
18.3
14.4
12.3
11.2
North East
24.5
19.5
16.1
14.1
12.7
Centre
15.6
11.7
8.9
7.4
6.4
South and Islands
96.3
Italy
77.8
63.4
55.0
49.7
Source: own elaboration
3. Family demand for caregivers
As regards demand for home caregivers on the part of families, the estimate process is based, on
the one hand, on the number and the characteristics of the population potentially in need of care and
on the other, on the characteristics of home caregivers. A household perspective must be adopted,
since personal care is closely connected with the living arrangements of elderly people and of
disabled or non-autonomous adults.
We hypothesize that the number of home caregiver users by age11, type of living arrangement12,
sex and region,
(x= 65, 75, 85+), may be calculated as a function of the numbers of elderly
people in the population by age and type of living arrangement,
in the services of a caregiver(EU) conditional on being aged
type h,
, and the probability of need
and in the living arrangement
, as follows:
[10]
According to the formula of Bayes:
=
[11]
thus
[12]
If we indicate
that is the rate of caregivers among the whole elderly population:
as
and
as pU,
[13]
[14]
Hence, the overall additional demand from elderly members in the household, D, can be
estimated as the sum of [14]
[15]
The result of equation [15] is adjusted a posteriori in order to take into account the number of
users of home caregivers among people aged under 65 (disabled and non-autonomous individuals).
11
We consider three age groups: 65-74; 75-84 and 85+.
We consider five types of living arrangements: single person, couple with children, couple without children, oneparent family and other family.
12
Hence to estimate the number of home caregivers demanded by the Italian households the
following inputs are required:
first, the distribution of elderly people grouped by sex, age group (65-74; 75-84 and 85+) and
living arrangements from 2011 to 2031,
. These estimates have recently been
produced (Blangiardo et al., 2012), using a propensity method similar to that used by the Australian
Bureau of Statistics (1999) and by Statistics New Zealand (2004). Briefly, this method assumes that
each individual has one role in a family and household (living arrangement type) and that the
proportion of population in each living arrangement type may be considered as the probability of
belonging to each role, grouped by age and sex. Such proportions – available from the Indagine
Multiscopo (Istat) – represent the living arrangement type rates (LATRs). Afterwards, the LATRs
are applied to the future population distribution by age and sex (Istat, 2011). As a result, we obtain
the distribution of the population by age, sex, region and living arrangement from which the number
of families and households is derived;
second, the distribution by sex, age and living arrangements of elderly people aged 65 and
, assisted by a home caregiver, according to the ad hoc survey conducted by Censis
over,
during 2012 on households assisted by home caregivers (Censis, 2013);
third, the number of home caregivers as of January 1st, 2011, employed by households with at
least one person aged 65 and older (Censis estimates) which can be assumed as a proxy of the
number of assisted elderly people.
Table 6– Mean annual value of the additional demand for home caregivers in Italy by area of
residence. (thousands): 2011-2030
Area
North West
North East
Centre
South and Islands
Italy
North West
North East
Centre
South and Islands
Italy
Source: own elaboration
2011-14
2015-19
7.1
4.2
4.1
2.8
18.2
5.2
3.4
2.9
2.2
13.7
16.4
8.5
9.0
6.6
40.6
12.4
6.8
6.5
5.1
30.7
Period
2020-24
2025-29
Minimum variant
6.1
5.0
4.1
4.0
3.7
4.0
2.9
3.0
16.8
15.9
Maximum variant
14.3
11.8
8.4
8.2
8.2
8.8
7.0
7.2
37.9
36.0
2030
4.5
3.8
4.3
3.4
16.0
10.6
7.7
9.6
8.3
36.2
Two different variants of estimates were computed: the minimum and maximum one. In the
former case, the demand for home caregivers is calculated considering only those workers active in
the care sector, while in the latter, workers employed in the domestic and family sector are also
included.
As shown in Table 6, the additional demand for caregivers due to the rise in numbers of elderly
people over the next years will decrease in Italy. This trend is ascribable to the projected trend in
the North West where the loss should be very sizeable, while according to our estimates the Centre
and the South and Islands regions should see a slight increase in demand.
Table 7- Mean annual value of additional demand for home caregivers in Italy by sex, age and
living arrangements of the caregiving user: 2011-2030.
period
Male
Single
person
65+
other 65+
5,563
4,355
5,215
4,346
3,913
4,811
3,686
4,495
3,742
3,427
2011-2014
12,357
2015-2019
9,761
2020-2024
11,696
2025-2029
9,787
2030
8,868
Source: own elaboration
10,697
8,268
10,092
8,434
7,783
2011-2014
2015-2019
2020-2024
2025-2029
2030
Female
Single
Other
person
other 65+
<65
65+
Minimum variant
843
4,170
2,624
654
3,078
1,745
790
3,758
2,394
658
3,982
2,980
598
4,187
3,595
Maximum variant
1,875
9,338
5,854
1,466
6,972
3,946
1,772
8,530
5,421
1,483
9,053
6,723
1,357
9,556
8,087
Other
<65
Total
206
147
188
212
237
18,217
13,665
16,840
15,920
15,958
462
333
427
482
540
40,583
30,746
37,937
35,962
36,189
In the future, the extra demand for home caregivers will be expressed mainly by men, persons
aged 65 and over and especially those living alone. According to the maximum variant, the surplus
demand will fluctuate in line with the age structure of the population. On average, therefore, in each
year until 2030 between 30 and 40 thousand domestic workers will be taking care of our elderly,
disabled and non-autonomous people.
4. Conclusions
The model herewith proposed is an original procedure both from the methodological perspective
and in terms of results. The methodology combines official statistics with data from ad hoc surveys
conducted on migrants in recent years. Taking as our starting-point the surplus in the labour force
that will exist in the main sending countries - making the reasonable hypothesis that in presence of a
surplus, workers will emigrate to another country in search of employment- we estimate possible
inflows towards Italy taking into account not only that people emigrate for work but also to rejoin
their families. The estimation at the national level is distributed according to region and we then
estimate the home caregiver supply by sex and nationality.
Furthermore, in order to appraise the demand, we consider the number of potential users of home
caregivers, starting from the estimated changes concerning elderly people, combined with structural
modifications on the basis of their household arrangements.
The outcomes constitute a helpful resource for planning purposes particularly as regards the
regulation of inflows and their redistribution around the country.
According to our results, significant changes will take place in the next twenty years.
Firstly, due to demographic trends in the main sending countries, and in those with higher
percentages of workers in the care sector, there will be changes in the composition of inflows
towards Italy. Inflows from the current sending countries, both for work and family reasons, will
decrease as a result of depletion in surpluses in the labour force, while inflows from central and
southern Africa will increase.
Secondly, the inflows of home caregivers toward Italy will gradually decrease from nearly 100
thousand to less than 50 thousand.
Thirdly, the estimates suggest that the current supply of domestic workers who arrive in Italy
each year from the Ukraine, Rumania, Moldova, the Philippines, Poland, Russia and Bulgaria, fully
satisfies the demand for nearly 40 thousand domestic workers, while in twenty years’ time the
supply from these countries will cover less than 30% of demand. Hence, in order to satisfy the
growing need for of family assistance, home caregivers will have to be recruited from other
countries, especially from Africa.
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