ABSTRACT

The willingness and activity of clients themselves to look for public social care services has a major impact on the special nature of social care service clienthood. Any examination of citizens rights to social care services needs to take a broad view and incorporate the whole concept of social welfare. Social rights began to appear in legislation in the 1950s, the decade that is said to mark the end of poor relief. The concept of subjective rights is easier to examine than that of social rights. The revision of basic rights during the 1850s in Finland saw the appearance for the first time of the concepts of subject and citizen, active or full citizens, man and citizen, common civil rights and political rights related to active citizenship. Children’s day-care in Finland, for instance, has seen an increase the size of daycare groups, a reduced level of special care and an increase in unqualified staff in day-care centres.