Economization of long-term care in Great Britain, Sweden and Germany

This article deals with long-term care policies in three different welfare and long-term care regimes. Despite of divergent regime assignments-Great Britain: liberal welfare state und means-tested long-term care regime, Sweden: social-democratic welfare state and social services long-term care regime, and Germany: conservative-corporatist welfare state and subsidiarity long-term care regime-all three countries restructured their long-term care policies during the 1990s in the context of neoliberal economization and marketization. All countries introduced efficiency-oriented measures, foster competition between different social service providers, and increase choices of people in need of elderly care. By analyzing the regulation of long-term care policies since the National Health Service and Community Care Act (1990) in Great Britain, the A"del reform (1992) in Sweden, and the introduction of the long-term care insurance (1994) in Germany, it can be shown that specific, national pathways, which due to the divergence of regimes and the specific long-term care problems within a country, have evolved.