Social care for older people - a blind spot in the Norwegian care system.

A growing number of older people in Norway receive care services at home. Public policy aims at promoting social safety, preventing social problems and providing recipients of care with the means to live an active and meaningful everyday life together with others. However, health-related services have long been prioritized at the expense of other care services. Our aims are to investigate how professional caregivers in Norwegian home care for older people relate their professional mandate to social care to assess what different professional positions regarding social care imply for realizing the ideal of integrated and person-centered care. Interviews with 16 professional caregivers are analyzed within the framework of positioning theory. A variety of discursive positions relating the own professional mandate to social care are identified. Findings suggest that the absence of common standards leaves it up to the individual caregiver if social care needs are met or not. Common standards for social care delivery and a more suitable skill mix among health and social care professionals are proposed.

The problem of dependency: immigration, gender, and the welfare state.

This article discusses the regulation of marriage migration to Norway through an analysis of the subsistence requirement rule which entails that a person who wants to bring a spouse to Norway must achieve a certain level of income. Policy-makers present two main arguments for this regulation. First, the subsistence requirement is a means to prevent forced marriage. Second, its aim is to prevent family immigrants from becoming a burden on welfare budgets. The major concern of both these arguments is that of dependency, either on the family or on the welfare state. The article investigates the representations of the "problems" underpinning this specific policy proposal and argues that the rule in question, and immigration policy more generally, needs to be analyzed with reference to the broader concerns and aims of welfare state policy and gender equality policy.