The welfare culture and the redesign of social elder-care in Finland

Abstract

The welfare culture and the redesign of social eldercare in Finland. © 2016 Guy Bäckman. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), permitting all non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. 130 RESEARCH ARTICLEThe welfare culture and the redesign of social eldercare in Finland Guy Bäckman * Faculty of Social Sciences and Economics, Åbo Akademi University, Finland Abstract: The welfare culture consists of doctrines and ideologies, beliefs, ideas, values and ideal norms that various groups and actors in the society have concerning the welfare state. The new ways of thinking, which are derived from the cultural turn and paradigm shift in social sciences, is in actual environments influenced and strengthened by economic and social changes, and also by the increasing number of old people. The Nordic welfare model (Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden), which is distinct from the other welfare models, is because of its basic ideological foundation, which also pertains to Finland, the general frame for the welfare culture. The characteristics of the environments in which people live, such as risks and uncertainties, impact thoughts and ideas they have about actual and preferred conditions, and influence the interest in renewal of welfare arrangements, schemes and services. Following this lead, we examine the changes in the legislation concerning social eldercare services and changes in provision and use of eldercare services in Finland. We also examine the division of responsibility for social eldercare between the public and private sector. Because the welfare arrangements are embedded in a complex cultural context, the research helps us to understand the shaping of the social eldercare. Great changes in the Finnish eldercare in favour of care at home or in a home-like environment have taken place. The goal "more home care, less institutional care" will serve even in the future as guidance in social eldercare.

The Nordic Welfare Model in the Wake of Post-WWII Transformations and Algorithms of Changing Social Policy

“…2016), on the basis of findings from a project about the future of social investment from 1999, examine the social investment perspective as a new welfare paradigm; policies for development and progress aim at "preparing" rather than "repairing" (Morel et al 2016: 1-2, 11-12, Hemerijck 2016. The ideas of the "new era of perspectives on social investment", with a life course perspective, leading on Rawlsian intergenerational justice, represents a new view of welfare provision, also in a long-term social policy for promoting social arrangements through policies based on existing values and goals in the welfare culture (van Oorschot et al 2008, Bäckman 2016. Other investments, such as impact investing in supportive functions (OECD 2015, O'Donohoe at al.…”