Bringing the family back in? Attitudes towards the role of the family in caring for the elderly and children
Keywords:
welfare state, fam ily responsibility, FinlandAbstract
In the last few years, demands for replacing the welfare state with family responsibility for the care of children and the elderly have become more and more insistent. Using data from a recent postal survey (N = 1,737), the article’s aim is to estimate the caring possibilities and caring potential of the family. The results show that compared to outside-home care and especially publicly provided outside-home care, family care is not supported by public opinion. However, the results provide no evidence of a decline in the caregiving potential of the family. Thus, the introduction of new family care-oriented policies and cuts in the public welfare services aimed at increasing family responsibility for the care of dependants could even be counterproductive, as families would soon be overloaded with caring tasks.
