birth rates Essays

birth rates Essays birth rates Essay birth rates Essay As the birth rates in recent years have been declined rapidly, the social issues that associate with older peoples social care come in quick succession. It is important to find out the way in solving these severe problems instead of ignoring. Therefore, this essay would analyze the approaches that different countries used and obtain the most sustainable way in order to achieve the social balance. Before comparing the elderlies social care approaches in different countries, providing the backgrounds of different countries are essential in analyzing which country has the best and the most sustainable approach. The information of the background must be included the proportion of senior citizen in these countries, the requirement of social care from the older people, and also the budget that the government invested in those services. In general, the situation of UK has no different from other countries. The proportion of older people in the I-JK society is increasing as there are more people becoming older. According to a report of population in I-JK, in 2010, there were about 640 thousands people turned 65 and in 2012, it is fgured out that there were about 800 thousands people turned 65. Later life in the United Kingdom, 2013) There is a 25% increase in the number of people turned 65 between these two years. Then, the total number of the elders aged 65 or above in UK is 10. 3 million, which is 16% of the total population in I-JK (63. 76 million populations). In this essay, Japan is chosen as the comparing group with the United Kingdom. Today, the population in Japan is about 126 millions, which is one of the larger population countries in the world. The country also experienced a losing population in recent years because of decreasing birth rates and no net immigration from other oreign countries. Japan also faces the ageing problem due to a huge increase in the amount of elderly. Refer to the statistic of population of Japan in 2010, there was 22. 6% of total population being aged 65 or above, which means there are nearly 29 million people aged 65 or above. This shows that Japan faced a serious ageing problem. For the elderlys need, older people are in the majority using health and social care services in the I-JK. Older people visit their General practitioners more frequently compared to younger adults, besides, they are the main users of both outpatient and npatient hospital services (ONS 2002). Also, about 33% of all I-JK hospital admissions and about 66% of the hospital beds are used by people who aged 65 years or above (DH 2000). In the period of 1972 and 2001, the number of old people who visited an emergency department is sharply increased from about 12% to 26%, which is more than doubled. This shows that the demand of elderly health service is rapidly increasing. Moreover, there was 43% of all NHS spent on hospital and community health services (HCHS) distributed to people aged 65 years and above in 2003 2004. expenditure. However, two-thirds of NHS clients who are aged 65 or above claimed that they only receive two-fifths of the total expenditure. Some of them said that it is difficult to have a surgery or get into a local hospital. And 64% of old people think that the health and care staffs do not treat them with respect for their dignity. That means there is a big difference between the society and the old people and the welfare system in UK is not good and fair to the elderly. The country containing with the most senior citizens in the world is Japan. It has the worlds highest proportion of senior citizen. Also has the largest number of centenarians. It can be seen as the consequence of the Japans tradition. Older people in Japan are lived with their family and with strong family care in general. And the children and other family members would take the responsibility of taking care the dependent older genitor in enlarged family living orders. They think that they have to respect to the old people because their contribution in the young age. However, there are some characteristics in reality extended family care. For instance, disturbing disregard and abuse of vulnerable senior people. Also left their senior parents with no medical need in hospitals in order to abandon them. Therefore, the Japan government had made a social care policy innovation. It loosens the restrictions of the range of service transmission past traditional family convention. But it is not helpful in solving both care-giving hell and social hospitalisation. In 20 century, in order to maintain the independent health and social care systems, the means-tested measures are under close surveillance. Based on the reform, Long- Term Care Insurance (LTCI) program was stocked with the taxation and insurance remiums paid by citizens aged over 39 since 2000. It offers an extensive range of care service transmissions beyond traditional family convention. Also, it developed an inter-help system of regional people under a time-banking system. Volunteers earn time credits for looking after for senior people in their social network. After discussing the situation in the I-JK and Japan, we will compare the effectiveness and the sustainability of the social care scheme in these two countries. It seems that the Long-Term Care Insurance (LTCI) scheme in Japan secure better living style of the elderly. This scheme is not only supported by taxation, but also the insurance premiums paid by citizens who aged above 40. This can reduce the tax burden of the general public (especially for the younger generation) in elderly health services. Moreover, it can ensure the elder people could receive a good medical treatment when after they retired as they are required to pay a fixed amount of premiums after aged of 40. Therefore, in terms of sustainability, the Long-Term Care Insurance (LTCI) program in Japan is the most sustainable in the future. On the other hand, the National Health Service (NHS) in UK is responsible for the free ealth care to the citizen. Huge amount of fund is needed as this scheme is fully supported by the government (tax-payers). In terms of sustainability, there are two disadvantages in this scheme. First of all, it shifts the financial burden of elderly health services to the government and the tax-payers. This increases the tax burden employments and birth rate. This is not good to the society in the long run as it is not sustainable. Secondly, with a rapidly increase elderly, the supply of elderly medical services may insufficient to satisfy all the needs of the elderly. The elderly may need o queue for a long time in order to receive a medical treatment or surgery. They may not able to enjoy medical treatment immediately when they are in need. As a result, the I-JK scheme is not sustainable in the future as it requires a large amount of fund to support this scheme. After the comparison between the UKs approach and the Japans approach, we may find out that the Long-Term Care Insurance (LTCI) program in Japan is likely to be most sustainable in the future. Although Japan has the worlds highest proportion of senior citizens and the largest number of centenarians, it has a complete social ealth care scheme which supports the health care of the elderly after they retired. Therefore, social health care is not a big financial burden for the Japan government due to the aid of the Long-Term Care Insurance (LTCI) program. Although the UK also faced the similar problem in social health care, the situation in the I-JK is much more worsen than the situation in Japan even it has smaller proportion of older people when compare to Japan. This is mainly due to the failure of the National Health Service (NHS) which makes the I-JK suffers from a severe situation on social care of lderly. The high operation cost has reduced the sustainability of this scheme as it shift and increase the tax burden to the younger generation. Therefore, it seems that the UK government should follow the approach of Japan, which is the Long-Term Care Insurance (LTCI) program, in order to have a sustainable social health care scheme. According to the estimation, the number of people in the UK who aged over 65 years will be rose by about 400 thousands in the next three years, especially the number of people aged over 85. (Wise, J. , 2008). If we follow the ld National Health Service (NHS) scheme, the financial burden of the government and the tax-payers will significantly increase, which is not good in terms of sustainability. As a result, the I-JK government should learn from the Japan government and change the social health care system into a scheme which is supported by taxation and insurance premiums. In conclusion, if the I-JK government combined the social health care system with taxation and insurance premiums, the financial burden of the government could be reduced and huge benefits would be gained by the society.