Estimating Net Social Benefit of the Community Care Services for the Elderly

Abstract

The government provides financial support to the 57 Home help service centers, 33 Day care service centers, and 16 Short stay service centers for the elderly. The number of service centers that receive financial support from the government is far less to meet the potential demand for the community care services. Therefore this paper applies cost-benefit analysis to evaluate the net social benefit of the services provided by the 3 types of the community care service centers sponsored by the government to justify the expansion of the government support. The benefit is calculated as community care services are provided privately in the market without financial support from the government. The potential market price is regarded as the benefit or value provided to the elderly. The price levels that potential users are willing to pay for these services are surveyed in the Census for the Elderly by the KIHASA, 1998. The market prices for the community services are generated by equating limited amount of service supply, as in number of users in one year in 3 types of community care service centers, and potential demand for the services. Market prices are multiplied to the number of users of 3 types of community centers to get the total benefit. Total operating cost of the community care service centers is regarded as cost. According to the cost-benefit analysis, Home-help service centers generated net social benefit of 126 billion Won, Day Care service centers generated 10billion Won, and Short stay service centers generated 3.4billion Won. Significant amount of net social benefit indicates that government should increase level of financial support to these service centers.