Suchergebnisse

An ageing population in Europe is currently putting pressure on long-term care services, creating demand for foreign workers. Using a life-course perspective, this article aims to contribute to the understanding of how life trajectories shape decisions about migration and employment in social care. Based on fifty-one life story interviews with migrant care workers in Norway and UK, two typologies are found: a Norwegian migrant life trajectory of downwards social mobility combined with settlement and a British trajectory combining stronger downwards social mobility with further migration. The article contributes to the discussion of contextualised migratory lives involving care work.

Norway has an international reputation as a representative of Scandinavian social democratic welfare regimes which strengthen their citizens' independence of the market and family. This picture can be challenged on the basis of an analysis of current changes in Norwegian long-term care policies and practices. Taking its departure from the different public/private distinctions unpacked by Jeff Weintraub, the article analyses the different ways Norwegian public long-term care services today relate to three different private forms. One is based on the liberal economic model and consists of a private care market. A second represents a classical individual-state approach and relates rather to the new consumer directed citizenship. A third approach is feminist inspired and relates to the impact of informal help on long-term care. In general, the discussion contributes to a more complex understanding of new forms of public/private relationships in the Scandinavian part of the world.

The notion of "optimizing" public policy is critically examined, discussing reasons why it cannot be done. In attempting to redefine the concept to make it more useful, the propositions that (1) policy goals are often multiple & competing, (2) there are few certain technologies for solving public problems, & (3) the context of public policy is essentially unstable & unpredictable are accepted. The strategy for optimizing suggested requires flexible, decentralized institutions, capable of responding to uncertainty. A long-term change in the approach to policy studies that implies both institutional & educational change & a well-articulated alternative to the conventional optimizing model is proposed. Modified HA.