CARE FOR THE ELDERLY AND THE RIGHTS OF THE DISABLED
This research paper discusses the current status in the European Community (EC) of provision for the care of the elderly and the disabled and the rights of persons who fall into such categories. Most of the nations of Western Europe provide extensive protection for the elderly and, to a lesser extent, the disabled, but a combination of fiscal, economic and demographic pressures render them unable to maintain, let alone expand, those benefits just as the aging of their populations is rendering a significant number of the elderly and the disabled more vulnerable. As a result, since the early 1980s a major political battle has been developing over the size and terms of future entitlement programs for these groups and various alternatives are being considered for shifting some of the financial burdens involved to local government, the private sector and/or to the individuals affected by central government funding constraints and cutbacks. The nature of these problems varies considerably by country, but all the nations in the EC are experiencing difficulties in protecting adequately the elderly and the disabled.
Challenges Facing Welfare States in the EC
Expansion of the Welfare State. During the prosperous post-war decades of the 1960s and early 1970s, the social democracies of Western Europe made substantial progress toward their goal of establishing an extensive system of social security for their citizens. The institutionalization of social rights in those states primarily benefitted the working and lower income classes. As Macdonald & Wastell said recently, "the cradle-to-grave welfare state has encouraged people to believe that they will be looked after in old age."
Retrenchment. by the middle of the 1980s, it had become obvious, as the European Economic Commission pointed out in 1986, that
"the trend in social security no longer involves the extension of cove...