The marketization of elderly care: has the care quality in Sweden changed during the 21st century? : A scoping study.

Sweden has with the introduction of different new public management inspired reforms, from the 80s and ahead, increasingly implemented marketization on tax-funded welfare services. One of the areas of social services that seemed ideal to marketize was eldercare. Today, almost 40 years later, we can see the results of marketization; re-organization, new laws, new requirements and new knowledge. But has the quality of care improved and do the elderly benefit from marketization? The aim of this study is to investigate what scientific research has found out about the impact of marketization on the quality of care in eldercare. The study is a scoping study and maps out a part of the field of research to make this research comprehensible. 12 articles published 2000-2019 have been chosen after an extensive search process and constitute the data of the study. The content of the articles have been analyzed by thematic analysis. The results indicate that due to the changes associated with marketization, a number of areas related to the quality of care in eldercare have changed for the worse during the last 20 years and only a few have improved