Population aging and changing family patterns have made elder care an important issue. In 1994, German law-makers enacted a major reform in the country' s long-term care policy, the Dependency Insurance Act (DIA). How, and in what way, will the relative use of formal and informal long-term care...

Existing literature analyzing the choice of received long-term care by frail elderly (65+ years) predominantly focuses on physical and psychological conditions of elderly people as factors that influence the decision for a particular type of care. Until now, however, the regional in-patient...