IELTS Writing task 2 | Who should pay for elderly care?

As the average age of populations is increasing, there are a larger number of elderly people with complex care requirements due to issues like dementia or low mobility. These people can often no longer be cared for by their families, and in Britain, many end up moving into residential care homes with specialist staff. This is clearly expensive, and it is debatable as to whether these costs should be borne by the government or the person’s relatives.

There is a strong argument in favour of families paying for an elderly person’s care in a nursing home. When people have children, they often do so as a form of insurance against old age. By investing their time and money into raising their children, ensuring that they are healthy and receive the best education, parents give their offspring the opportunity to find well-paid jobs. This investment is often made with their own old age in mind, to ensure that their families are capable of providing for them in any eventuality, including care in a nursing home. Consequently, it could be argued that the family should pay for the care of elderly people.

Despite this, there are several important counterarguments. Firstly, not all families are wealthy enough to afford expensive nursing home fees. It would be unreasonable to bankrupt working people for the sake of providing care for elderly relatives who require specialist interventions. More importantly, throughout their careers, people pay taxes to the government, and it is reasonable for them to expect a return for this money. The government should plan properly for the future and budget accordingly, setting money aside for state pension pots and residential care for elderly people whose families can no longer support them. For these reasons, it should be the government’s responsibility to pay for nursing home care.

In conclusion, there is a clear argument that families should pay for the care of their elderly relatives. However, I believe that the government should cover these costs, as not all people can afford to pay for expensive residential care, and the government should save and invest the tax money people pay to provide for them in the event that they need care in their old age.

As in many countries, in the past it was common for families in the U.K. to look after their elderly or infirm relatives. However, times have changed and in today’s world it is just not practical or financially viable for most families to undertake the role of care provider. In my opinion, nursing care should not be the responsibility of the family, and I believe the costs should be met by the government.

People spend the large part of their lives working and as such pay taxes and national insurance contributions to the government. I would argue that if an individual has paid into the system for approximately 50 years, then they should be entitled to a return on their investment, in this case nursing care. If a family needs to bear the responsibility for full-time care for an elderly relative, then one member may have to give up their job to assume the role of care giver. As a result, not only does the individual lose a source of income but their quality of life diminishes.

Unfortunately, most care homes nowadays in Britain are owned by private individuals or entrepreneurs so the monthly fees are considerable. It is now common for many old people to have to sell their own property or use their life savings to pay care home fees. It seems ironic that people who have contributed into the system for so long end up losing everything they worked so hard for only to pay for nursing care. There seems little point, in contributing into a system that does not adequately provide for its elderly despite taking high taxes under the premise of care in the future.

In conclusion, I believe nursing care is a basic human right and therefore should be the responsibility of the government. The U.K. government receives hundreds of billions of pounds in various taxes and national insurance contributions on an annual basis so if people contribute into the system then they should not have to use their personal wealth to finance nursing care.

You can find an analysis of why this answer only scores 4.5 here.

A visible change of any living organism is getting older. Child, youth, adult and elder are some of the stages in our life. Child and elderly stages are dependent stages compared to other two stages. For both of these situations, a human being needs other’s support.     

While we were children, our parents were there for our supportive role. When the parents became older, definitely their children need to be the supportive role for their parents. This is the role we carry among human beings vice versa. If the parents live with their children only parents will feel safer, attached to family and sharing of love. Unfortunately, many of them attending to works, they do not have time to look after their children neither their parents. In this case, elders could be sending to some a common place where other elders are staying. But payment cannot be made by the government.  

Since it is the responsibility of their family, definitely family needs to pay for caring of their parents. They may not have enough time to take care of their parents. Since the government has employed special people for that, at least those elders’ parents need to be paid by their family.    

For an example, many of the parents were private sector employees and they did not have a monthly pension scheme. But they have only Employee provident fund and employee trust funds. It has been used by the children of the parents in plantation sector of Sri Lanka. Finally, children will neither look after their parents nor elderly parents do not have own money in hand. That is, all advantages utilised from elders. When they become a stage of the dependent, families are trying to escape from their responsibilities. This is a kind of selfish. Paid by the government should be stopped and families should be paid for them.

Especially the children are responsible for looking after the parents; they should definitely pay for the parents and not the government.