Abstract
A great welfare challenge today is to promote opportunities of digitalization while limiting social inequalities from digital divides, especially for older people. While the digital divide is a dynamic problem, shifting from physical access to skills and usage, public policies to close the divide do not necessary follow. This study explores who is providing digital support in Sweden by looking at three institutions: (1) the municipal eldercare system, (2) popular education institutions, and (3) the family. The results show that the Swedish policy rely heavily on popular education and family arrangements, leaving many young-old Swedes in need of digital support without public support, while the opposite occurs for very old Swedes who are mostly consumers of welfare technologies. Issues of dependency/independency arise. Given this, the role to the Swedish welfare state needs to be re-evaluated, especially in light of rapid demographic change.
Highlights
A great welfare challenge today is to promote opportunities for greater digitalization, while limiting social inequalities from digital divides, especially for older people
The results show that the Swedish policy relies heavily on popular education and family arrangements, leaving many young-old Swedes in need of digital support without public support, while the opposite occurs for very old Swedes who are mostly consumers of welfare technologies
The way digitalization was handled in Sweden was started as a promising path but seems to be a rather inefficient arrangement: many older people and some of them young-old seniors (65-74 years old), who are still active, apparently need digital help, but they are not provided public support
Summary
The question of whether increased digitalization will increase inequality over time remains important and deserves the attention of every welfare regime (Esping-Andersen, 1990, 1999). According to Blomqvist (2004, p.148), the introduction of NPM ideas modified: the culture of the Swedish elder-care sector, which is evident not least in the new “economistic” language used in this sector even by the authorities, where care is referred to as “products” and the elderly as “consumers” Another side-effect of the marketization/privatization is that fewer people receive public care, with the focus being directed to those most in need of support (Blomberg et al, 2010) and not to the whole population. These technologies are “associated with the promise of an improved public sector with services to support patients and independence as well as cost-effectiveness and improved working environments for healthcare and social care professionals” (Frennert & Baudin, 2019, p.1) Older people and their helpers in Sweden (e.g. nursing personnel or family members) are expected to use digital tools. Active aging policies are considered to be largely shaped by the welfare context in which they are implemented (Ney, 2005) and we suppose that the same happens with the digital policies having as a target group older people in Sweden
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