In the new issue of IPF Notes, Marijana Bađun and Marija Penava Šimac analyse the right to the status of carer with a focus on elderly persons with disabilities. In Croatia, almost 50% of disabled persons are over the age of 65, and their share is likely to grow.

Carer’s allowance is one type of support to providers of informal long-term care. The 2022 Social Welfare Act enabled not only spouses or domestic partners of persons with disabilities to be granted carer status, but also persons of the care recipient’s choice, which means that children, relatives, friends and others can be granted the status of carer, provided that they share a household with the care recipient. In addition, people over the age of 65 may also become carers now. The authors show how these changes led to an increase in the number of elderly persons with disabilities who were granted a carer – rising from 1 in early 2022 to 109 in mid-2024. However, the latter number is still small. Many elderly people with severe limitations in personal care and household activities are not supported.

The authors point out that Croatia should improve its long-term care system at the organizational, normative and financial levels. Examples from developed countries such as Japan demonstrate numerous challenges arising from population ageing, but also the need to develop policy measures aimed at solving these challenges. Croatia’s neighbouring country Slovenia introduced a Long-term Care Act in 2021, while in July 2025 long-term care insurance becomes mandatory contribution. This Act has been in preparation for 20 years. Croatia has no long-term care strategy; even if it did, this alone would not be sufficient. Quality data is needed for evidence-based policy, but in Croatia, national statistics pertaining to long-term care is quite “poor”. Regarding carer status, records should contain information on the age (of both the caregiver and care recipient) and relation to the care recipient (spouse or domestic partner, child, relative, friend, etc.). It would also be useful to know the carer’s previous employment status, education level and sex (i.e. the share of female carers). Granting carer status could reduce the grey economy in long-term care and lead to the professionalization of care. Therefore, it is important to determine the relationship between the caregiver and the care recipient. 

The authors conclude that long-term care should play a much more important role in social policy because families will, for one reason or another, no longer be able to provide care to elderly and disabled members of society to such a great extent.