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Long-term care, dependence and the third sector

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Abstract

The demographic changes that have taken place throughout the twentieth and early twenty-first century confirm the increase in the number of older adults. More older adults implicitly entail an increase in the number of people in a situation of dependence. The issue of long-term care has economic, social and health care implications. This article addresses the characteristics of the companies involved in long-term care services and the employment generated. The database of the Spanish Directory of Companies (DIRCE) provided information on the variables used in the analysis: companies created, employment generated, companies by legal status and territorial distribution of the companies. Noteworthy findings were that the long-term care service sector contributes more to creating jobs than other economic sectors and that third sector companies are important in providing long-term care services.

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Notes

  1. The Central Directory of Companies (Spanish acronym, DIRCE) offers in a single information system all Spanish companies and their local offices located in Spanish territory. The purpose of the directory is to allow economic surveys to be made by sampling. It is updated once a year, generating a new information system on 1 January of each period. A statistical analysis of the results for companies and local offices is published. Results are expressed in relation to autonomous community and legal situation, primary economic activity and stratum of employees assigned.

  2. Besides the characteristics of the third sector, literature studies the characteristics of social entrepreneurship, too; i.e., Benz (2009), Tan Williams and Tan (2005), among others.

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Correspondence to Francisco Escribano Sotos.

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Escribano Sotos, F., Pardo García, I. Long-term care, dependence and the third sector. Small Bus Econ 38, 321–331 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-010-9277-4

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