ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with four Scandinavian countries: Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. Among the factors that acted to strengthen the position of the public sector in the Scandinavian countries, reference can be made to religion, poverty and local government. The long-term development in the Scandinavian care services can be described as a shift from residual to universal care policy. Summarizing the discussion on the status of social care services before the years of growth and expansion, it is interesting to ask whether the basic characteristics of the Scandinavian social care model could already be identified in the early 1950s. After the Second World War there was really only one social care service available for elderly people in Scandinavia: the old age home. Denmark invested heavily in the development of day care services as early as the 1950s, but the other Scandinavian countries did not follow suit until the late 1960s.
