Permalink : http://hdl.handle.net/2115/36644

In April 2000 the public long-term care insurance system started in Japan. The implementation of the system can be evaluated as a histolical turning point to socialize care of the elderly which has mainly been carried out by the family. The argument employed to promote the insurance system was that the universality of service and citizens' own initiative would be guaranteed by the premiums paid, while a tax-based system would require a means-test or an examination of a family's situation where people are unable to select the service on their own initiative. This arguement however contradicts the features of the Nordic welfare states where universal social services are an essential part of the tax-based social security sytem. Does paying premiums guarantee the right to services? It is obvious that if the quantity and diversity of the services and legislated citizen's rights are missing or insufficient, universal social services would not be achieved under any financing system. The aim of the present study is to trace the development of social services in Finland from the period of reconstruction to the year 2000, especially to examine the process whereby selective social services and the policies relating to the elderly policy have become transformed into universal services. The study focuses on the change in social structure after the war, as well as political, ideological and other factors that have influenced the formation of a Nordic national minimum standard, i.e. the extensive coverage of public social and health care services and their universal accssibility regardless of citizens' social class or residential area. The study examines the two reforms that had an essential influence on the development of social services. The first one was the VALTAVA reform that was implemented in 1984, the central cores of which were a reform in the subsidies and grants paid by the state to the municipalities in the sector of social welfare and health, and the implementation of the Social Welfare Act that was to guarantee universal social services to all citizens. The other is the reform in the allocation system that took place in 1993, which dramatically changed the relationship between the state and municipalities, leaving the latter with more autonomy to decide on the supply of social services. The study also takes a look at how the decentralized social services have managed to survive the recession of the 1990s, the most severe recession Finland has undergone since the war.