This paper (i) examines long-term care (LTC) protection in 46 developing and developed countries covering 80 per cent of the world’s population (ii) provides (data on LTC coverage for the population aged 65+ (iii) identifies access deficits for older persons due to the critical shortfall of formal LTC workers (iv) presents the impacts of insufficient public funding, the reliance on unpaid informal LTC workers and high out-of-pocket payments (OOP) and (v) calls for recognizing LTC as a right, and mainstreaming LTC as a priority in national policy agendas given the benefits in terms of job creation and improved welfare of the population.