The Double Waning of the Relative

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eldercare services. The next section concerns how, by observing the relative as a waning caregiver in these changing functions of public eldercare, the policy ends up erasing the relative from caregiving.

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relative is disappointing. This can be problematized. The policy thus installs public eldercare on both the problem and the solution sides of a series of interlinking problem/solution distinctions, and in this process of describing increasing expectations for public eldercare the policy stops expressing any expectations for the relative. What can be expected from the relative as a waning caregiver is nothing, which is established with expectations raised instead for public eldercare, where uncertainty now arises to how to substitute for the relative. This is the uncertainty the policy is preoccupied with reducing in the 1930–1969 period.

This finding of how the policy erases the relative can also be observed in how, towards the end of the 1960s, the policy starts to describe the elderly citizen in a radically new way, but without posing any new expectations for the relative at all. Hence, in the 1960s the policy shows a more rounded perception of elderly citizens and their care needs, presenting detailed descriptions of such needs. The policy no longer describes only the need for financial support and for accommodation at a home for the elderly or care in one’s own home, but also discusses what exact needs must be filled at such homes and what homecare arrangements are required for elderly citizens to be able to age in place.³²⁶ This can, for instance, be seen in 1964 when the laws on public assistance and national social insurance merge their acts on the elderly citizen into a single act on ‘care for the disabled and old-age pensioners’. In the new act the term for care is changed from the Danish ‘forsorg’ to ‘omsorg’.³²⁷ Both words translate into the English term ‘care’, but ‘omsorg’ is used to indicate that the function of eldercare has changed from that of merely financial assistance to a more holistic kind of care. When the act used the term

‘forsorg’, the public sector defined the elderly’s needs as having two prongs, financial support and homes, but now, using the term ‘omsorg’, § 1 of the act covers ‘types of care’, stating that eldercare has been extended to also include ‘guidance concerning the rights of old-age pensioners’, ‘help in equipping the home of the old-age pensioner’, ‘support for necessary assistive technologies for the old-age pensioner’ and ‘homecare to the necessary degree’, among other things.³²⁸ The policy also starts describing the elderly citizen as someone with activity needs, mental needs and social needs.³²⁹ A white paper from 1962 mentions, for example, the ‘common experience’ that elderly citizens’ need to ‘live under good and modern

326 L169 1961; L114 1964: § 8; Lov om folkepension 1966; L229 1968: §§ 1, 4.

327 Lov om folkepension 1966: 13.

328 My translations: ‘Former for omsorg’, ‘vejlede pensionisten om en pensionists rettigheder’, ‘yde nødvendig hjælp til indretning af en pensionists hjem’, ‘yde støtte til nødvendige hjælpemidler til pensionisten’ , ‘Yde hjemmehjælp I nødvendigt omfang’ (L229 1968: § 1). See also L169 1961; L114 1964: § 8; L229 1968: §§ 1, 4, 18.

329 B318 1962: 18, 22, appendix 4 p. 44-45, appendix 3 p. 43-45, appendix 5; L114 1964: § 8; L229 1968: § 18.

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conditions’, but the paper puts equal importance on elderly citizens’ need to have ‘their physical condition and … also their mental health to be tended to and maintained in the best possible way^’,³³⁰ and states the importance of occupation and activities in achieving these aspects of health and well-being.³³¹ The paper also shows the public sector’s burgeoning interest in how homes for the elderly can give elderly citizens physical care as well as occupational therapy and activities.³³² For example, the paper emphasizes the importance of fitting out homes for the elderly in a way that accommodates ‘club activities’ and offers ‘occupations for both the home’s residents and elderly citizens living outside the home’.³³³

Around this time, the policy also begins to see the elderly citizen as someone with a potential to progress and starts communicating about themes such as training and rehabilitation, describing how ‘rehabilitating elderly patients’ enables even the fairly disabled to be self-reliant.³³⁴ For example, one white paper refers to rehabilitation at homes for the elderly when it notes that ‘with an increased effort in this area, residents become healthier and more mobile and sometimes are even able to return to their own homes.’³³⁵ Thus, the eldercare policy in the end of the period describes a whole new range of elderly citizens’ needs that have to be filled in order for them to age in place and thus keep the costs of eldercare under control. Importantly, in describing this new set of discerned needs, the policy poses no expectations for the relative.

I assert that precisely because of the double waning, this new perception of the elderly citizen does not constitute a break in the policy’s observation of the relative. The policy’s preoccupation with constructing public eldercare problems and solutions can be said to blind it to the relative. Every ‘new’ need of eldercare that crops up in the period is constructed as a need to be met by public eldercare. As such, the policy’s observation of the elderly citizen develops, but because this development takes place in documents addressing the public efforts designed to handle the waning relative, the policy does not consider the relative with the development of the elderly citizen.

330 My translation: ‘almindelig erfaring’ ‘bo under gode og tidssvarende forhold’ ‘drages omsorg for, at deres fysiske og også deres psykiske sundhedstilstand plejes og vedligeholdes bedst muligt’ (B318 1962: 22).

331 Ibid.: 22.

332 B318 1962: 7, 15-16, 22, 26-29; L114 1964: § 6.

333 My translation: ‘klubvirksomhed’ ‘beskæftigelse både af hjemmets beboere og gamle uden for hjemmet’ (B318 1962: 20).

334 My translation: ‘lykkes at gøre selv ret invaliderede ældre selvhjulpne’ (Ibid.: 22, appendix 3 p. 44).

335 My translation: ‘man med en øget indsats på dette område kan opnå, at beboerne bliver raskere og mere mobile og endog undertiden kan udskrives til eget hjem’. (Ibid.: 22).

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Danish eldercare policy thus begins the period by constructing the relative as a waning caregiver and ends the period with no relative present in the policy. The double waning of the relative thus refers to how the policy first observes a waning of the relative as a caregiver in eldercare and solves this waning by constructing public eldercare solutions that substitute for the waning relative and therefore enable and facilitate the waning, thus ultimately completely excluding the relative from the policy’s gaze on eldercare. Uncertainty about what to expect of the relative is thus reduced with the waning relative role, as nothing can be expected of the waning relative, except that it is busily occupied elsewhere. However, this reduced uncertainty about what to expect of the relative comes with greater expectations for public eldercare as regards how to substitute for the waning relative. Although the waning relative stops the policy communication on the relative, it sparks the policy communication on how public eldercare can substitute for the relative, and this uncertainty about how to substitute for the relative increases with the emerging holistic view of the needs of the elderly, thus generating new decisions as to how to substitute for the relative in meeting such holistic needs. The reduced uncertainty about what to expect of the relative thus appears to come at the cost of increased uncertainty about what to expect of public eldercare in its substituting for the waning relative.