Most studies on the care of dependent people have been at the national level and have focused on formal paid care. The aim of this working paper is to offer a comparative global picture of adult care systems—comprising paid and unpaid care—that have been developed in the different regions of the world. To this end, a method for estimating care demand is proposed that takes into consideration the age and the average life expectancy in poor health of the populations.

The empirical basis is formed by demographic and health information of the United Nations and the European Commission. An estimate is presented of the volume of care demand and the composition of care supply on different continents. The results show that the regions with greatest per capita unpaid care overload are Africa and, a long way behind, America and Asia.