The Shifting Borders of Home-Care Policies. Reconfiguration of the State Social Action in France and in Quebec
Older adults constitute what may be called a privileged “clientele” of the State: old-age health and retirement programs are in fact core policies of the welfare state. However, ageing policies in industrialized countries have increasingly converged since the 1990s towards the home as space of predilection for ageing. These new social policies face a very different environment from that of the golden age of the post-war welfare state. This article proposes to examine how these policies adapt (or not) to the new social, demographic and budgetary challenges of the present and, therefore, it aims to shed light on what they reveal about the wider transformations of the welfare state in the 21st century. The analysis rests upon a comparative study of Quebec and France and it relies on a review of scientific, institutional and professional documents. Three main trends have been observed: the ambiguity of the objectives pursued by these policies, the contradictory visions of the expected roles of individuals, families and the State, and the adoption of informal strategies so that these policies “work” despite their missing resources.