New report ‘Informal long-term care in the context of demographic change and intergenerational fairness in the EU’
In March 2026 the European Commission Joint Research Centre published a report titled ‘Informal long-term care in the context of demographic change and intergenerational fairness in the EU’.
This science-for-policy brief explores how the demographic change currently underway in Europe is affecting the distribution of long-term care responsibilities across generations. Differences in caregiving and care-receiving patterns between generations are also analysed in the context of an ageing population.
Results show that changes in the age structure of the population result in fewer informal carers being available to care for older adults than in the past. In the future, this trend is likely to worsen. Younger adults today are likely to face a higher caregiving burden when they reach their 50s and 60s compared to previous generations, while also being at risk of receiving less informal care in their older age.
Achieving intergenerational fairness in informal long-term care requires redistributing care responsibilities and more support for caregivers. Labour market policies need to enable people to combine informal caregiving with paid work, protect caregivers’ wellbeing and reduce gender and socio-economic inequalities.
This brief calls on policymakers and long-term care providers to expand and diversify formal services (including home care, community-based care and residential care) and to integrate them more effectively with informal care and other social and health services. A person-centred approach should be adopted to ensure that care is coordinated and tailored to each individual’s evolving needs throughout their life.
‘Intergenerational fairness’ is one of the key focus areas of the European Commission, which recently published the first EU Strategy on Intergenerational Fairness. This policy document also mentions long-term care and gender-based inequalities in care.
