This paper builds on recent research on the fortunes of universalism in European social policy by tracing the development of eldercare policy in four Nordic countries: Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. Six dimensions of universalism are used to assess whether and how eldercare has been universalised or de-universalised in each country in recent decades and the consequences of the trends thereby identified. We find that de-universalisation has occurred in all four countries, but more so in Finland and Sweden than in Denmark and Norway. Available data show an increase in forprofit provision of publicly funded care services (via policies promoting service marketisation), and an increase of family care (re-familialisation) as well of services, paid out-of-pocket (privatisation).These changes have occurred without an explicit attack on universalism or retrenchment of formal rights but are threatening the class-and gender-equalising potential of Nordic welfare states.2

It is widely believed that domestic outsourcing is booming. Many believe the growth of market services is a response to increasing time pressures arising from new responsibilities in the paid workforce, and to an inflexible sexual division of labour at home. The interpretation of the consequences of the purported growth of domestic outsourcing has been both divided and extreme. Paid domestic services have been declared: (1) a thing of the pre-industrial past (Coser 1973); (2) a victim of self-servicing (Gershuny 1983); and (3) the last frontier in the continuing advance of the market in post-industrial society (Ruthven 1994). Consequently, the alleged boom in outsourcing has been viewed either as the resurgence of a pre-modern form of the exploitation of labour (possibly based on race or ethnicity), heralding a deeper and more intractable form of social stratification (Arat-Koç 1989; Glenn 1992; Gorz 1994; Gregson and Lowe 1994; Probert 1997; Romero 1992), or as the future engine of opportunity (Ruthven 1997). Unfortunately all this discussion has run ahead of the facts. Two areas of research are vital - one is a study of the demand for outsourced domestic goods and services, and the other is wide-ranging comparative study of the labour relations in the domestic outsourcing industry. This paper addresses the first of these areas. It describes a study of trends in expenditure on domestic outsourcing drawing on an analysis of Australian Household Expenditure Surveys 1984-1993/4. This information is then interpreted in the light of our knowledge of trends in time use over the same period.

This Special Issue of the Journal of Sociology includes papers contributed to a workshop in 2008, called 'Sisters of Sisyphus', about New Public Management (NPM) and the human service professions. This workshop arose from discussions about the impact of neoliberalism on the welfare state, and specifically on its workforce.'Neoliberalism' broadly means the project of economic and social transformation under the sign of the free market. It also means the institutional arrangements to implement this project that have been installed, step by step, in every society under neoliberal control.The free market is the central image in neoliberal discourse, and deregulation of markets, especially capital markets, was among the earliest and most important neoliberal policies. Controls over banking, controls over currency exchange, and controls over capital movement were all loosened or abolished, as neoliberal control spread around the world from its first realization in Chile in the 1970s. Finance capital became the dominant sector in the international corporate system. Gradually a fast-moving global arena of financial transactions, consisting of a network of national and international markets in shares, bonds, financial derivatives and currency, was brought into being. (For the economic system of neoliberalism see Duménil and Lévy, 2004;Harvey, 2005.) Markets are hungry for new sources of profit, and under neoliberalism expand into new domains. Needs formerly met by public agencies on a principle of citizen rights, or through personal relationships in communities and families, are now increasingly likely to be met by companies selling services in a market. Neoliberals have had astonishing success in creating markets for things whose commodification was once almost unimaginable: water, body parts, pollution and social welfare among them.

The series is indebted to Diana Encel for her continuing editorial contribution. As with all of the Centre's publications, the views expressed in this DISCUSSION PAPER do not reflect any official position on the part of the Centre.