Welfare services - how to define needs?

This chapter focuses on needs in relation to welfare services, which can be more difficult to define and measure than income transfers. This includes, among several issues, that two people with the same, for example, needs based on an objective approach may, as a result of variations in their income or other life conditions (for example, having a partner), have a difference in the need for services. There are already today in most welfare states a number of criteria for receiving services which may depend on age, unemployment, illness, educational attainment level and/or disability. This can be combined with people’s financial position in relation to whether or not there is a user fee for the services in question. But at the same time, people’s capabilities can have an impact on whether there can be different types of need that can be objectively measured and what offers the welfare state decides to make available. Capabilities might thus be an important issue with regard to access to services. In addition, there may be people who find that they themselves think they should have more services, and/or are seen as having needs that are not covered, often labelled unmet needs. This is used as an example that, in relation to the need for services, there can be both objective and subjective criteria for who should have services and the extent thereof.