Emiel Hassefras
The current generation lives further away from their parents than in the past. This means that the filial responsibility will be called into question. Together with the trend with the rising costs of nursing homes and domestic care elderly are neglected. Are we collectively responsible for the previous generation or are you as child fully responsible for your own parents? Furthermore what are potential technical innovations that could help with this dilemma and what are the remarks on this innovation?
On the one hand the ageing of the population asks for more personal care. On the other hand nowadays the traditional caregivers, daughters, participate more on the labour market. Due to globalization we as children also tend to move further away from our nests. Here is the dilemma: increasing demand and decreasing supply of care. This has a multiplied effect on the increasing costs of care. So when looking at the current economic state the expenses of care are way too high so cut backs are introduced. Policy-makers encourage that informal care, care given by family, has to be alternative for the more costly formal care. The labour mobility and the participation of women on the labour market have increased, resulting in a bigger income for the family. So our individual situations have improved, but on the other hand the life quality of our precessors has decreased. In my opinion it is the individual responsibility of our families to take care of our elderly. We took advantage of the sketched economic trends and when this means that we can take care of our parents by ourselves we have to set money aside monthly to pay for the proper care institutions. Collectively speaking it is undesirable to increase taxes to spend on care, because the inefficiency rate in this way is very high and the allocation of care is very dubious.
This approach can be sufficient in the short term, but in the long term we have to work on the increasing costs of care. Care is very labour intensive, so innovation on replacing this labour with capital equipment would cause an enormous cost cut. An example is the care robot. This is a fine piece of technology that could replace the simple procedures of care in everyday help. Here responsible innovation comes in. Domestic care is not only a moment of help to elderly, but is also a moment of social connection. The discussion about this innovation is that a robot cannot meet with these requirements. Now the sympathetic care robot is fully in development, a robot that does socially connect with people. To me the ideal solution for cost reduction. On one hand it will take some time until the teething problems are overcome, but on the other hand the sympathetic care robot is within literature the flagship of responsible innovation. Finally as children we must not ignore the responsibility to give a visit to our parents once a while and we must be sure they get proper care. This robot could be the pivot to make this more financially feasible.