Skills certification: a structuring choice in response to national ageing and autonomy challenges

Elderly woman seen from behind facing the sea, evoking seniors’ autonomy and independence

Published on: 07/04/2026Updated on: 07/04/2026

In France, more than 2 million people aged 60 and over are already living with a loss of autonomy, and this figure could reach nearly 2.8 million by 2050¹. In this context, ensuring high-quality support at home is a fundamental public policy challenge. For more than 30 years, the individual employers and home-based employment sector has developed an ambitious skills certification strategy, making professionalisation a central lever to secure career pathways, strengthen job attractiveness and guarantee the quality of care for people experiencing loss of autonomy.

The home as a cornerstone of ageing policies

Demographic ageing is profoundly transforming social needs. According to INSEE, by 2050 nearly one in three people in France will be over 60, compared with one in five in 2005, and an additional 700,000 older adults will be living with a loss of autonomy.

As most French citizens wish to age at home, public policy aims to strengthen home-based care capacity. However, the home is not just another care setting: it is a place of life, intimacy, and sometimes vulnerability. Ensuring quality care at home therefore requires:

Mastery of professional care gestures
The ability to adapt to age-related conditions and pathologies
Coordination between professionals, caregivers and medico-social stakeholders
A strong ethical and relational posture

Against this backdrop, skills certification is a strategic tool supporting public ageing policies.

Home-based employment: 30 years of structuring quality

Within the field of autonomy, the sector of individual employers and home-based employment plays a major role, representing 1.1 million individual employers and 548,000 employees¹.

For more than 30 years, the professional branch has anticipated demographic change by building a structured professionalisation policy:

Creation of specific professional certifications (e.g. personal carers, family assistants)
Development of job-specific frameworks adapted to home-based care realities
Expansion of Recognition of Prior Learning (VAE)
Individualised career support through COEPS (Sector-specific Career Guidance and Professional Development Service)

This strategy is not short-term. It is part of a long-term vision: making skills certification a cornerstone of quality home-based care.

IPERIA: an operator within the quality chain of home-based care

Frameworks → Training → Assessment → Certification → Professional recognition → Trust

Certification is not simply about training. It is about:

Objectifying the skills used in home-based care situations
Ensuring a high level of professional standards
Securing career pathways in a labour market under pressure

Concrete impacts on professionals… and on care quality

Behind these systems are real professional journeys, such as Dulce’s: : « I had been working as a family worker for about twelve years when I discovered certification. Once I obtained it, it gave value to my work. It shows that this is a real profession. It also makes you feel more respected and recognised when applying for a new employer. Experience matters, but certification is an added value. »
Diara, a care assistant, also highlights how certification strengthens her professional role: « With the coordination certification, I have additional skills to highlight. I can help organise my employers’ daily life and act as a link with relatives, doctors, nurses, etc. It gave me confidence in my professional practice. And I do not intend to stop there—I want to continue certifying, especially in relation to pathologies. ».

These experiences reflect a clear reality: certification brings far more than knowledge. It also strengthens:

Trust from individual employers
Professional recognition
Job attractiveness
Quality of care delivery

In a context where 54% of employees supporting older, dependent or disabled individual employers will retire by 2035², and where more than 170,000 care workers aged 70 and over will be needed, skills certification is a major lever. It is not an additional constraint, but a structural investment in responding to national ageing and autonomy challenges.

¹DREES, October 2025
² Home-based Employment Observatory, 2025

Skills certification: a structuring choice in response to national ageing and autonomy challenges

The home as a cornerstone of ageing policies

Home-based employment: 30 years of structuring quality

IPERIA: an operator within the quality chain of home-based care

Concrete impacts on professionals… and on care quality

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