Changing Social Arrangement for Elderly Care in The Netherlands

Many factors influence the shaping and reshaping of welfare policy — among these include state ideas and interpretation of social justice. With a focus on policy shifts on state-led elderly home care since the 1980s, The Netherlands has progressively championed citizen participation and solidarity to rescue Dutch welfarism. Earlier efforts by the state found that economistic strategies alone were incapable of offering viable cost-cutting solutions capable of safeguarding the dignified life of its citizens. Through the introduction of participatory citizenship, no longer were the elderly regarded as passive, helpless and dependent individuals. The elderly began to be approached as active and productive citizens, boosting elderly morale, self confidence and independence. Despite this positive turn however, secondary and primary data point out to a worrying trend of deteriorating quality care and social relations. The purpose of this study is to offer potential pathways to consider for ongoing research on social justice, welfare restructuring and public policymaking. Reflections on changes in state-led elderly home care arrangements are informed by the work of feminist care ethicists and gender analysis on the public-private divide. Through the application of Roy’s two-strand methodology of interrogating policy planning and “the ideal of the public”, the study observes the pernicious effects of policy planning based on a conception of individuals as autonomous blocks (practice), and the limits of liberal ideas encompassed by mainstream and alternative conceptions of social justice (discourse).