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Health and the Changing Welfare State in Norway: A Focus on Municipal Health Care for Elderly Sick

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Abstract

This article aims to describe and discuss the health care system in Norway in a social, cultural and material context, with a main focus on the (the largely municipal) elderly care sector as part of a changing welfare state. The elderly care sector in Norway is extensive and mainly public, with only a small fraction being run by commercial firms or by voluntary organizations. As the Norwegian welfare state has been changing quite much during the latest two decades, the same holds true for the elderly care sector.

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Notes

  1. The regions in Norway are not easy to define except with regard to specific fields like the field of health services, where the country is divided into four health regions with a responsibility for specialist health care, where the boundaries between them have recently been revised (from previously five health regions).

  2. The concept of welfare state has been around for quite some time. In Norway its documented use can be traced at least back to 1884, introduced in a speech given by the professor of economy Ebbe Hertzberg (Kuhnle 1994:10). Since that time the content of the concept and its realization have been matters of contestation.

  3. Such a typology of welfare state models originates from Richard Titmuss (1974), while the labels employed in the present article was developed by Gösta Esping-Andersen (1990, 1992). Leibfried (1993) label the various European (and Western) models the “Anglo-Saxon” model, offering benefits merely to those in greatest need; the “Central European” model, providing social benefits dependant on labor market participation; and, the “Latin fringe states” model, where social responsibilities are to a larger extent supposed to be fulfilled by family or relatives.

  4. Prof. Emer. Stein Ugelvik Larsen, University of Bergen, oral communication December 2008.

  5. Estimates of arable land in Norway varies between 2.5 and 3.5% of the total land.

  6. Of more than 3 days, as measured in Spring 2008 by Kommunenes sentralforbund (KS; “the central organization of the municipalities”).

  7. Varying slightly between nursing homes and home-based care, as measured Spring 2008

  8. For the year 2005 the exact figure was 35,564 beds in a population of around 4.4 million inhabitants.

  9. Combined institutions means institutions where there are both nursing home and retirement home wards, sometimes including housing for assisted living.

  10. Licenced vocational nurses (“hjelpepleiere”).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Care Research, Western Norway, Bergen, Norway

    Frode F. Jacobsen & Tone Elin Mekki

  2. Bergen University College, Bergen, Norway

    Frode F. Jacobsen & Tone Elin Mekki

  3. Betanien University College, Bergen, Norway

    Frode F. Jacobsen

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  1. Frode F. Jacobsen
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Correspondence to Frode F. Jacobsen.

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Jacobsen, F.F., Mekki, T.E. Health and the Changing Welfare State in Norway: A Focus on Municipal Health Care for Elderly Sick. Ageing Int 37, 125–142 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12126-010-9099-3

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