Similar Trends, Different Responses: The Transformation of Care in European Societies

Abstract

As an edited collection this book holds many voices. Within a common research theme, authors have adopted a myriad of analytical perspectives in this volume, either to study the same phenomenon in different countries or to look at particular dimensions of the same problem. The result is a quilt composed of different layers sewn together into a larger patchwork. What binds them together? What common story do the individual pieces tell? Why are there diverging destinies? And where are they? This concluding chapter addresses these questions through the identification of a number of themes that cut across, in one way or another, different chapters in this book. Thus, this final chapter does not in strict sense present a summary of findings in individual chapters. Instead it aims at ‘joining in’ the most crucial issues, results and debates with regards the transformation of care in European societies.