Just care for the elderly and disabled

This chapter explores justice and care from the perspective of Nancy Fraser’s claim for participatory parity, focusing in particular on justice as recognition and redistribution, and Amartya Sen’s capability approach. It is based on two reports that constitute ethnographic and sociological analyses of principles and discourses of justice, and their realisation in national care systems and practices, from the perspective of both care recipients and care givers. The first part of the chapter briefly outlines the idea of justice and care by pointing at the complicated relationship between (inter)dependency, participatory parity and capabilities, followed by a section on the methodology of the chapter. The second part of this chapter analyses the discourses on care at the European level, their assumptions and agendas. This analysis reveals three main boundary lines of care: passivity vs activity, dependency vs independency and residential care vs community care. The third part dives into the lived experiences of care, and by exploring care relations between care recipients and care givers operating under diverse care regimes, it shows how care workers and care recipients cope with the three boundary lines of care. In the final part of the chapter, we conclude that for justice in care to be achieved, a tailor-made and stepwise care system should be developed in constant deliberation with stakeholders.