According to the recent Eurostat data for 2013/2012, the “Old age and survivors” group of citizens receives the greatest share of the total volume of social protection benefits in the Czech Republic (46%, 9.7% of GDP), followed by the categories “Sickness/health care” (29.7% of the total benefits, 6.3% of GDP), and “Family/children” (8.8% of the total benefits, 1.9% of GDP). The percentage shares of GDP are below EU28 average.

Out of EU 28, Ireland has the lowest share of the total social protection benefits spent on the category “Old age and survivors” (21.1%, 6.9% of GDP), but 46.4% of the total social protection benefits (15.1% of GDP) flow into the category “Sickness/health care”. On the opposite side of the spectrum stands Greece with 17.8% and 6.4% of GDP spent on “Old age and survivors” and “Sickness/health care”, respectively.  View more data.

OECD published data for 2011, with Czech Republic being just above the OECD average (7.9% of GDP) with 8.9% of GDP spent on pensions and below the OECD average in family benefits public spending. Public spending on labour markets in 2003-2013 was significantly below the OECD average. Click here for details. 

The Czech Radio published an article on old people’s homes, looking at their capacity, number of the elderly per employee, or the number of employees who passed a school-leaving exam (maturita) within their secondary education. The data from the research performed by a Czech student studying in Switzerland in cooperation with the Czech Radio show that the capacity of the Czech old people’s homes is 96% full and many of the retirement  homes do not offer specialized care that some of the elderly need. More details are available here 

Click also on an article Japan's population is shrinking: What does it mean for the economy? published on the World Economic Forum website.