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The purpose of this study is to develop new type of reverse mortgage contract. How to provide adequate services and housing for an increasing number of people that are dependent on the help of others is a crucial question in the European Union (EU). The housing stock in Europe is not fit to support a shift from institutional care to the home-based independent living. Some 90% of houses in the UK and 70%–80% in Germany are not adequately built, as they contain accessibility barriers for people with emerging functional impairments. The available reverse mortgage contracts do not allow for relocation to their own adapted facilities. How to finance the adaptation from housing equity is discussed.

The authors have extended the existing loan reverse mortgage model. Actuarial methods based on the equivalence of the actuarial present values and the multiple decrement approach are used to evaluate premiums for flexible longevity and lifetime long-term care (LTC) insurance for financing adequate facilities.

The adequate, age-friendly housing provision that is appropriate to support the independence and autonomy of seniors with declining functional capacities can lower the cost of health care and improve the well-being of older adults. For financing the development of this kind of facilities for seniors, the authors developed the reverse mortgage scheme with embedded longevity and LTC insurance as a possible financial instrument for better LTC services and housing with care in assisted-living facilities. This kind of facilities should be available for the rapid growth of older cohorts.

The numerical example is based on rather crude numbers, because of lack of data, as the developed reverse mortgage product with LTC insurance is a novelty. Intensity of care and probabilities of care in certain category of care will change after the introduction of this product.

The model results indicate that it is possible to successfully tie an insurance product to the insured and not to the object.

The introduction of this insurance option will allow many older adult with low pension benefits and a substantial home equity to safely opt for a reverse mortgage and benefit from better social care.

While currently available reverse mortgage contracts lapse when the homeowner moves to assisted-living facilities in any EU Member State, in the paper a new method is developed where multiple adjustments of housing to the functional capacities with relocation is possible, under the same insurance and reverse mortgage contract. The case of Slovenia is presented as a numerical example. These insurance products, as a novelty, are portable, so the homeowner can move in own specialised housing unit in assisted-living facilities and keep the existing reverse mortgage contract with no additional costs, which is not possible in the current insurance products. With some small modifications, the method is useful for any EU Member State.

Dignity and well-being are key aspects of the legislation and policies that regulate care of older persons worldwide. In addition, care of older persons should be person-centred. Dignity and well-being are described as results of person-centred care (PCC). The purpose of this study was to gain an understanding of important aspects for older persons to experience dignity and well-being in residential care facilities (RCFs).

This study had a qualitative approach, and individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 older persons living in RCFs. Data were analysed using inductive content analysis.

To experience dignity and well-being older persons emphasized the importance of preserving their identity. To do this, it was important to be able to manage daily life, to gain support and influence and to belong to a social context. However, the findings indicate a need for improvements.

Insights into older persons’ experiences of important aspects for experiencing dignity and well-being in RCFs can be used by first-line managers and registered nurses when designing improvement strategies to promote PCC.

Dignity and well-being are described as results of PCC. The findings provide an understanding of what older persons perceive as important for experiencing dignity and well-being in RCFs. The findings are useful when designing improvement strategies to promote PCC.

The purpose of this paper is to estimate the real urbanization level in China so as to provide a measurement that can be compared with the international level.

Taking into consideration 300m residents living in the administrative towns (300m residents here are referred to the population in administrative towns, including those in all counties), the gap between the urbanization rate of China and that of the world average becomes much wider.

China, however, implements the administrative system of government at the central, provincial, municipal, county and township levels. By city, it means the jurisdiction at and above the level of county, which includes the municipality directly under the central government, prefecture-level municipal and county. By town, it means the jurisdiction below the level of county (including the Chengguan Town, or capital town, where the county government is located) and exclusive of rural townships.

China has witnessed rapid development for 40 years since the reform and opening up in 1978. Nowadays, China has already stepped into the period of post-industrialization, with its urbanization rate (UR) of permanent population reaching 58.58 percent. However, on the basis of registered population, the UR is 43.37 percent, which is not only far below the average level of 81.3 percent in high-income countries, but also lower than the average of 65.8 percent in upper middle-income countries which are comparable to China in terms of per capita income. (The classification of state income level is based on the data of national income per capita and division standards in 2016 from the World Bank, in which annual revenue per capita in high-income countries reaches over US$12,736 and that in upper middle-income countries between US$4,126 and US$12,735.)

What is the relation between the land system with Chinese characteristics and the country's high-speed economic growth in the past decades? There is a lack of rigorous academic research based on the general equilibrium theory of macroeconomics on this issue.

By building a multisector dynamic general equilibrium framework with land system, this paper explores how the land supply mode with Chinese characteristics affects China's economic growth as well as its transmission mechanism.

This paper confirms the importance of land system with Chinese characteristics in explaining the mystery of China's high-speed economic growth. Counterfactual analysis shows that if China adopts a land system similar to that of other developing countries, GDP will drop 36% from the current level under the baseline model.

As the industrial sector shrinks relatively and the output elasticity of infrastructure decreases, this inhibitory effect will become more apparent. China should improve its land supply mode, especially expand the supply of commercial and residential land and reduce the cost of land in the service sector. This can promote better economic development in the future and thus improve household welfare and the structure of aggregate demand, replace “land-based public finance” and thus inhibit the “high leverage” risks of local governments.

New Public Management (NPM) has increased fragmentation in municipal health and social care organizations. In response, post-NPM reforms aim to enhance integration through service integration. Integration of municipal services is important for people with complex health and social challenges, such as concurrent substance abuse and mental health problems. This article explores the conditions for service integration in municipal health and social services by studying how public management values influence organizational and financial structures and professional practices.

This is a case study with three Norwegian municipalities as case organizations. The study draws on observations of interprofessional and interagency meetings and in-depth interviews with professionals and managers. The empirical field is municipal services for people with concurrent substance abuse and mental health challenges. The data were analyzed both inductively and deductively.

The study reveals that opportunities to assess, allocate and deliver integrated services were limited due to organizational and financial structures as the most important aim was to meet the financial goals. The authors also find that economic and frugal values in NPM doctrines impede service integration. Municipalities with integrative values in organizational and financial structures and in professional approaches have greater opportunities to succeed in integrating services.

Applying a public management value perspective, this study finds that the values on which organizational and financial structures and professional practices are based are decisive in enabling and constraining service integration.

Recruiting and retaining staff to work with elderly people in social care is a global issue. The quality of leadership is considered important because it influences employees’ job satisfaction, job turnover and health. This paper aims to identify leadership that employees in residential elderly care facilities in Sweden consider as contributing towards a healthy work environment.

The authors interviewed 14 persons employed in facilities organized in different ways. The data from these interviews was analysed using qualitative content analysis..

The results showed that the employees felt that their health partly depended on the attributes that leaders possessed, what leaders do and how leaders do it. This study confirms that leadership influences the perception of a healthy workplace. It also shows that questions about leadership are complex.

Research about factors that increase health risks is wide-ranging; however, research that examines factors that promote health, especially how leadership influences employees’ well-being, is not as comprehensive.

This chapter discusses how ‘hidden’ populations of women who use drugs (WWUD) in coastal Kenya became ‘visible’ through accessing health, harm reduction and rights services. This effort was facilitated by the Muslim Education and Welfare Association (MEWA) and their work with community leaders. Mapping undertaken by MEWA outreach workers identified women who use opioids and other substances in isolated drug use settings. MEWA introduced daily meals in identified sites, needle and syringe services and residential rehabilitation services for opioid withdrawal. The introduction of residential adherence services for HIV and tuberculosis and the provision of methadone enabled compliance with the 90-90-90 UN HIV cascade. These services achieved sustained HIV viral load suppression at 83% and a 100% cure rate for tuberculosis among WWUD. In addition, disclosure and partner risk tracing was established in the ‘drug dens’ for women who test positive for STIs. The introduction of women-only hours once per week at the drop-in centre contributed to a better understanding of drug dependency among outreach workers and clinicians. Policies on gender-based violence were also refined, leading to an increase in reported cases. Programmes targeting families were introduced to promote effective communication and improve parenting skills. Access barriers to social security programmes were tackled by a network of paralegal officers in partnership with Kenyan authorities. Finally, entrepreneurship training and mentorship programmes were implemented to build resilience among WWUD.

In this paper, we theoretically examine the optimal hedge strategy for a natural gas company. The use of natural gas derivatives to minimize consumers' per unit cost of natural gas consumed, or to minimize the upside risk associated with extreme bills would be the strategy being considered by local distribution companies (LDCs) and regulators. The objective is, therefore, to stabilize the summer and the winter months' natural gas prices as well as to improve the level of customers' welfare. In general, during the summer injection period, April through October, utility companies purchase a certain amount of natural gas and keep in storage facilities and, hence, during the winter withdrawal months, November through March, utility companies supply natural gas at a predetermined minimal fuel cost rate to residential and commercial customers. Therefore, to manage these conflicts of interests efficiently should natural gas companies be supported by accurate forecast of the natural gas price for the winter months. Otherwise, natural gas companies will trade natural gas derivatives in order to reduce costs charged to customers. The results show that customers benefit from the use of natural gas derivatives. If the natural gas market is deregulated, the typical risk-return trade off shows that natural gas derivatives would provide the most efficient tools for utility companies to minimize the natural gas price volatilities.

Today, low-income people seeking resources from the federal government must often work through non-profit organizations. The purpose of this paper is to examine the constraints that the poor must face today to secure resources through non-profit organizations.

This is a conceptual paper. The authors review cases of non-profit organizations providing federally supported resources to the poor across multiple sectors.

The authors find that to accept government contracts serving the poor, nonprofit organizations must often engage in one or several practices: reject clients normally consistent with their mission, select clients based on likely outcomes, ignore problems in clients’ lives relevant to their predicament, or undermine client progress to manage funding requirements. To secure government-supported resources from nonprofits, the poor must often acquiesce to intrusions into one or more of the following: their privacy (disclosing sensitive information), their self-protection (renouncing legal rights), their identity (avowing a particular self-understanding) or their self-mastery (relinquishing authority over daily routines).

The authors show that the nonprofits’ dual role as brokers, both liaisons transferring resources and representatives of the state, can complicate their relation to their clients and the predicament of the poor themselves; the authors suggest that two larger trends, toward increasing administrative accountability and demonstrating deservingness, are having both intended and unintended consequences for the ability of low-income individuals to gain access to publicly funded resources.