Introduction

Abstract

Over a decade ago, Mary Daly and Jane Lewis (2000) were intuitively able to envisage a complex process of policy change in the field of social care: the subtle shifting of responsibilities among institutional domains implying a further shift in the mixed economy of welfare. Daly and Lewis’s claim, back then, that developments in contemporary societies have moved care to the centre of welfare state activity is today hard to dispute. Two prolific decades of knowledge building, academic research, data standardisation, as well as policy practice, have strengthened our analytical capacity to ascertain the extent to which, and the way in which, reforms in care policies are actually transforming welfare states. Nevertheless, we still face the challenge of studying social care reform in measureable terms both across countries as well as over time. This book project is fully committed to such an endeavour.