The Marketization of Care. National Responses to a Global Paradox - an Australian Case Study.

Over recent decades decades there has been a shift away from more traditional forms of public services towards increasingly marketized systems of provision. These are associated with an increasing reliance on private capital and competition between a variety of providers, with public agencies competing alongside private for-profit and not for-profit non-government agencies. Drawing on care theory as well as historical sociology and political economic analysis this paper examines the conflicting tensions that shape aged care under marketization. Using Australia as a case study, it is argued that aged care is increasingly the site of ongoing conflicts over governance. Tensions are also evident as larger commercially-focused bodies, both privately owned and non-profit, increasingly threaten to take over space historically occupied by government and small locally based non-profit providers.