Ageing and diversity

As a society ages, this diversity causes tension in the welfare structures of the society, because more and more older people are sharing the available care resources. In Sweden, cuts in welfare funding are taking place, and the coverage of public home help and residential care has become less generous over the last 15 years. During this period of cutbacks, public care has become more stratified, based on class, gender and ethnic dimensions (Szebehely, 2012).

The cutbacks are severe when considering how much help people over 75 will now receive compared to previous years. People who received their first public home care visit in 2008 were older than those who had received their first public home care visit in 1980, and women have been the most affected. The sensitivity to individual needs has also been replaced by a practice guided by standards and routines instead of by the needs of the individuals (Lindelöf and Rönnbäck, 2004). All of this has happened without any changes in legislation.

In the 20th century, the sociopolitical discourse changed from a view of older adults as dependent, isolated and passive to a group expected to be active, independent, healthy and well-integrated consumers. This change in the view of older people was followed by the expectation that they should be resourceful enough to purchase care services previously offered by public care (Prop 1987/88:176: 27). When the threshold to qualify for care increases, people are more likely to buy services on the market, and this favours people with higher socioeconomic status. People in economic hardship, who are often women and less educated, must ask for help from family members who are also often women. Family-based care has increased and, regardless of national origin, women have become the ones most likely, whether paid or unpaid, to support their older family members.

Universalism, the cornerstone of Swedish social policy, means that basic social benefits and services are designed for all citizens, and in practice a large majority of citizens use these benefits and services. The benefits and services are uniform rather than tailored to specific groups (Sainsbury, 1996). The social security system, including pensions and other financial aid, with its base in full employment, created a situation where an individual's welfare is linked to the individual's participation in paid work.