How Are Residential Care and Intermediation Classified in ISIC Rev. 5?

Residential care and intermediation in ISIC Rev. 5, UN Statistics Division, cover two related but distinct activities. Residential care provides accommodation together with nursing, personal or social care, in homes for older people, people with disabilities, and others who need residential support. Residential care intermediation, class 8791, is one of the 18 new intermediation classes in ISIC Rev. 5, and it covers bringing people who need residential care together with providers, without the intermediary itself providing the accommodation and care.

Provision and matchmaking are two different jobs

Residential care and intermediation look similar from a family’s point of view, because both are involved when someone moves into care. Statistically, they are two different jobs, and Rev. 5 insists on keeping them apart. Residential care provides accommodation together with nursing, personal or social care, in homes for older people, people with disabilities, and others who need residential support. The provider runs the home, houses the residents, provides meals, nursing and daily support, and carries the responsibility for the place where people live. Residential care intermediation, class 8791, does none of that. It brings people who need residential care together with providers, without the intermediary itself providing the accommodation and care. The intermediary’s service is the match, not the home. Class 8791 is one of the 18 new intermediation classes in Rev. 5, and its creation reflects a wider recognition that bringing people and providers together has become a distinct economic activity in its own right.

What sits inside each side of the line

• Residential nursing care activities, where nursing is provided alongside accommodation
• Residential care for older people and people with disabilities, where personal and social care accompany housing
• Other residential care activities, as described in the UNSD entry, for people who need residential support
• Residential care intermediation, class 8791 in Rev. 5, UN Statistics Division, where the service is matching, not provision

A care home that houses residents, provides meals, nursing and daily support shows provision in its fullest form: the residents live there, the staff are there in the pattern the home provides, and the home is accountable for the living environment. A service that assesses a person’s needs, matches them with suitable care homes, arranges visits and charges a fee for the match, without running any home itself, shows intermediation: the fee is for finding and arranging, the visits are introductions, and the care, once chosen, is provided by the home, not by the matcher. The difference is provision versus matchmaking, and Rev. 5 now gives each an explicit place, so neither disappears into the other.

Four neighbours that test the boundary

Providing accommodation alone, such as a hotel, is not residential care, because no care accompanies the lodging. Providing health care without accommodation is health work, not residential care, because the patient does not live in the provider’s facility. Social work without accommodation, described separately, supports people in their own homes or in day settings, and again involves no residence in the provider’s facility. Acting as an employer of care staff for a home owned by another unit is employment work, because the unit’s service is supplying labour, not running the home. Each neighbour turns on a single question: does this unit house and care for residents itself, does it match people to homes, or does it do something else entirely, such as employ staff or provide a bed for a night.

Why the distinction matters as care becomes more brokered

The distinction matters as care markets become more brokered: families increasingly find care through intermediaries, platforms and advisers, rather than by approaching homes directly. If matchmaking were counted as care provision, the number of care places would be overstated, because the same bed would be counted once by the home and again by every intermediary that listed it. At the same time, the brokerage market itself would stay invisible, and policy makers would have no measure of how much families pay for finding care, how concentrated that market is, or how it affects choice. Class 8791 keeps both visible: beds counted where they are provided, and matching counted where it is performed. Rev. 5, UN Statistics Division, contains 22 sections from A to V, with 87 divisions, 258 groups and 463 classes in total, so that separation, at class level, is what makes the two totals usable rather than merely plausible. Start from the UNSD detail page, work through the section and its finer levels, and note whether the entry covers accommodation with care, or matching without provision, including any exclusions noted there.

This guide offers only a statistical description of residential care and of intermediation under class 8791, and it does not fix any particular home’s or intermediary’s code, principal activity or registration. Any real home or matching service should have its placement confirmed by the national statistical institute or business register that holds its record.