Study On Contemporary Elderly Care System In Sweden

The situation of the population aging in China is becoming more and more serious.The large number of the old people has brought about a growing need of the elderly care services, which makes the Chinese society facing a heavy burden of old-age security.lt is an urgent task for China to construct an elderly care system suited to Chinese national conditions.Currently, the social elderly care system, consists of home-based elderly care,community elderly care and institutional elderly care,has been preliminarily set up in China.But the construction of the system is still at the starting stage and facing a series of crucial problems.To solve the problems,it is necessary for China to draw lessons from the advanced experiences of other countries.As one of the first aged countries,Sweden has a long history of dealing with aging population and has accumulated rich experiences during the development progress of its elderly care system,which can provide China with some useful references. Therefore, the Swedish elderly care system is chosen as the study theme.This study uses literature research method to collect data.The literature used in the study includes relevant academic papers both in English and Chinese, and Swedish government reports about elderly care. The study uses historical analysis method to analyze the history of development and changes of the Swedish elderly care system. The study answers two main questions,one is "What is the contemporary Swedish elderly care system?",and the other is "How did this system be established in Sweden?"The study content is divided into four parts.the current situation of the Swedish elderly care system;the history and development motivations of the Swedish elderly care system;challenges to the Swedish elderly care system and its future development; conclusion and discussion about the inspirations to the construction of the elderly service system in China.The study results indicate that the elderly care system in Sweden consists of two main service modes:home-based elderly care and institutional elderly care.The system is largely financed by local tax, featured by public responsibility, universal right,local autonomy,and high professional level.The system originated from 1920s, during about one hundred years of development, it has transformed from a home care duty to a public responsibility, from poor relief to a universal right, from amateur care to professional care.The social democratic political tradition, the expansion of public sector employment,and the attachment of great importance to the professional personnel training, are three important influential factors of this transformation. Nowadays, the Swedish elderly care system is facing a series of challenges caused by the change of the domestic population characteristics and structure. To address the challenges, the Swedish central government will adjust the supply of the elderly care services within the current system structure,while the basic values such as social justice, universal right,public responsibility won’t be changed in the near future.Based on the study results,the author discusses the inspirations for the Chinese elderly care system development in the final part of this paper, indicates that the formation of the Swedish elderly care system has its specific political, economic, social and cultural backgrounds.China is a country with different historical tradition and realistic national conditions from Sweden. It should be noted that when using the experience of other countries for reference,the Chinese government should pay attention to the problem of localization, combine the foreign experiences with China’s social reality rather than completely copy an advanced model.