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Looking for the Easy Way Out: Demographic Panic and the Twists and Turns of Long-Term Care Policy in Finland

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Aging Welfare and Social Policy

Part of the book series: International Perspectives on Aging ((Int. Perspect. Aging,volume 20))

Abstract

This chapter aims to map the twists and turns in the development of long-term care policy in Finland since the start of the 1990s. The main argument of the chapter is that these changes have to a large part been motivated by what is called here ‘demographic panic’, that is, fear of consequences of population ageing to the public purse. Various policy changes have taken place during the last three decades. Since the late 1980s, Finnish long-term care policies have been made under the shadow of the ‘demographic time bomb’ discourse that argues that care expenditures are to rise exponentially if determined action is not taken to curb the expenditures. As a result, the focus of policy has been on preventing the increase of the costs, not on developing care provisions that are needed by the growing older population. Before taking these policy turns under closer examination, key statistics concerning development of the age structure as well as the use of main care provisions in Finland are presented.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland

    Teppo Kröger

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  1. Teppo Kröger
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Correspondence to Teppo Kröger .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Sociology of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, China

    Tian-kui Jing

  2. Department of Comparative Politics, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway

    Stein Kuhnle

  3. Institute of Sociology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, China

    Yi Pan

  4. Public Administration/Social Policy, Pace University, New York, NY, USA

    Sheying Chen

  5. Center for Social Work Study, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

    Sheying Chen

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Kröger, T. (2019). Looking for the Easy Way Out: Demographic Panic and the Twists and Turns of Long-Term Care Policy in Finland. In: Jing, Tk., Kuhnle, S., Pan, Y., Chen, S. (eds) Aging Welfare and Social Policy. International Perspectives on Aging, vol 20. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10895-3_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10895-3_6

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-10894-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-10895-3

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

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