In this chapter, active citizenship is discussed in relation to elderly care policies and informal care practices in Finland. Active citizenship, in the way that Janet Newman and Evelien Tonkens define the notion in the introduction of this book, composes the main conceptual frame for our analysis. We will demonstrate that the ideal of social citizenship is giving way to active citizenship. The ideas of participation, responsibility and choice shape political norms and objectives within the policy discourse on elderly care; but active citizenship is also manifested in the everyday practices of informal care. As we will show, informal carers of older people might, however, bring a critical voice into the discourse and practice of active citizenship. We will also trace major tensions between the emerging political discourse on active citizenship and how it is materialised in everyday care practices. This brings into view questions of justice and equality: citizens (i.e., informal carers) have very different resources at their disposal, and access to social networks shapes their capabilities to bear and share care responsibilities.’

The chapter is structured as follows. We begin by setting the context for our study – public policy on care in Finland – then go on to describe and evaluate the official policy discourse on elderly care. We ask whether the idea(l) of active citizenship can be identified from the official policy discourse, and how far the three dimensions of active citizenship (participation, responsibility and choice) shape social care policy discourse and practice in Finland. We concentrate on elderly care arrangements at home and policies supporting these arrangements, since previous studies on informal care in Finland (see e.g. Anttonen, Zechner & Valokivi 2009) show how care provided by family members informally without pay or supported by payments for care schemes represents a strong political norm, leading to a new construction of care citizen (Ungerson 2004). In the third part, we focus on interviews with informal carers to find out how active citizenship discourse is materialising in everyday care situations. We pay attention to carers’ views on public participation and care responsibilities, and on the choices they make in the emerging market of social care.