|
The rapid growth in the number of older people will have a significant impact on the demand for elder care in Canada. In turn, the growth in demand will have implications for the cost and individual use of care. Increasing the availability of foreign-born care workers will reduce the needed market adjustments. This purpose of this background contextual analysis has been to calculate how many foreign- and native-born workers would be required under a baseline assumption of a constant ratio of elder care workers to older people. The results show that a substantial increase in the number of elder care workers is required overall—rising from 315 thousand to 845 thousand for long-term institutional care workers alone. Under the assumption no net additions of foreign-born workers (low scenario), the native-born workforce would have to rise by a factor of 3.1. Under the assumption of a constant foreign share (medium scenario), both the foreign- and native-born workforces would have to rise by a factor of 2.7. Finally, under the assumption of no net additions of native-born workers (high scenario), the foreign-born workforce would have to rise by a factor of 8.7.
|
