ABSTRACT
In recent decades, welfare services have increasingly been marketized. More private producers of welfare services have entered the scene, and the relationship between citizens and welfare providers, whether private or public, has become more customer-oriented. One example of the trend towards marketization reforms can be observed in the introduction of voucher systems in schools, which gives parents and pupils the option to choose schools. Sweden is one of many countries in which such a system has been introduced, incorporating such programmes in 1992. Other Swedish welfare systems have also been marketized, in comparable manners, for example the elder care sector, which Helene Brodin studies in her chapter in this volume.
