The subject's duties and the citizen's demands:: On changes in elder care in Swedish agrarian society, 1815-1939

The performance of elder care, both public efforts and family based, in two socio-economically very different settings is examined. The author argues that there were connections between an area's socioeconomic structure and the way elder care was organized. Until 1920, elder care was governed by traditional patriarchal values found in both areas. Elderly people with some resources could more easily obtain public support than those who had nothing. Also, a gender dimension was visible because men but not women were allowed reproductive support. Women had to work because of their class position, not because of their sex. The growing welfare state blurred the distinction between the private and the public sphere as old age security shifted from a family duty to a civil right. This shift, linked to democratization, occurred more slowly in the region of landless tenants and farm-workers, which also was the more patriarchal-dominated area.