Since the 1970s, welfare state policies towards childcare and long-term care for older people in need of care have experienced fundamental reforms in many countries. They were in part based on the extension of social rights and a publicly funded infrastructure for childcare and LTC for older people. Since the 1990s, welfare states also have strengthened their support for the outsourcing and marketization of care, particularly in the field of LTC policy for older people. In part, the cultural ideas towards the ‘ideal’ forms of care and about the ideal type of caregiver have also changed.
This stream aims to analyse such change in care policies and to explain why it in part went along different trajectories in different welfare states. It evaluates the role of cultural ideas, institutional traditions and actors for this development and for the explanation of cross-national differences. In addition, it analyses which approaches and concepts are suitable for comparative and cross-disciplinary analyses of this historical development. It will also be discussed how far the change has led to sustainable solutions with regard to social integration and demographical change.
