Reforms in long-term care policies in European Union countries

Researchers: Caroline Glendinning, Alison Wilde, SPRU
Costanzo Ranci, Polytechnic of Milan, Italy (co-convenor)
Emmanuele Pavolini, University of Macerata, Italy (co-convenor)
August Österle, Institute for Social Policy, Vienna University of Economics, Austria
Viola Burau, University of Aarhus, Denmark
Claude Martin, French School of Public Health and University of Rennes, France
Blanche LeBihan, French School of Public Health and University of Rennes, France
Hanne Marlene Dahl, University of Roskilde, Denmark
Hildegard Theobald, University of Vechta, Germany
Marta Szebehely, Department of Social Work, University of Stockholm, Sweden
Barbara daRoit, University of Utrecht, Netherlands
Gregorio Rodríguez-Cabrero, University de Alcalá de Henares, Spain

Funder: National Research Centre of SPI-CGIL (Pensioners’ Trade Union)
Polytechnic of Milan

Duration: November 2009 – December 2010

Aims

In response to increasing pressures of demographic ageing and changes in the availability of family care, many EU countries have reformed their long-term care services over the past 15 years. The aims of this study were to:

• Describe changes in long-term care policies in nine Western European countries over the past two decades
• Examine the extent to which reforms illustrated a convergence between models that were originally developed in very diverse institutional and economic contexts.

Specific features of reform that were examined included:

• Pressures and drivers for change
• Forms of change and evidence of convergence
• Regulatory reforms and evidence of convergence
• Impacts and outcomes of reforms for users and for institutions
• Decentralisation and its impacts

Methodology

Each participating researcher contributed a report on reforms in her/his own country, written to a common structure, but emphasising particular unique national features where relevant. All participating researchers contributed to the concluding comparative chapter.

Policy and practice aims

Developing appropriate and sustainable long-term care arrangements is an important area of welfare state development; many welfare systems have to date not provided adequate coverage for the new risk of dependency. These developments involved redefinitions of social rights and the respective roles of families and market mechanisms; and the emergence of new regulatory regimes. The study analysed these changes and examined them for evidence of convergence. It contributed to the development of theoretical approaches to different welfare regimes and to the understanding of the changes within these regimes, in the contexts of common demographic, social and economic pressures.

Publications and presentations

Show Abstract...

2011

Le riforme delle politiche per la non autosufficienza in Inghliterra: una storia lunga e incompiuta, 2011
Glendinning, C., La Rivista delle Politiche Sociali (Italian Journal of Social Policy), 4, pp.205-242.

If you require further information about the project, please contact Caroline Glendinning