title: Medical dominance and neoliberalisation in maternal care provision: the evidence from Canada and Australia.
abstract: Since the 1970s, governments in many high-income countries have implemented a series of reforms in their health care systems to improve efficiency and effectiveness. Many of these reforms have been of a market-oriented character, involving the deregulation of key services, the creation of competitive markets, and the privatization of health and social care. Some scholars have argued that these "neoliberal" reforms have unseated the historical structural embeddedness of medicine, and in some cases even resulted in the proletarianisation of physicians. Other scholars have challenged this view, maintaining that medical hegemony continues to shape health care provision in most high-income countries. In this paper we examine how policy reforms may have altered medical dominance over maternity care in two comparatively similar countries - Canada and Australia. Our findings indicate that neoliberal reforms in these two countries have not substantially changed the historically hegemonic role medicine has played in maternity care provision. We discuss the implications of this outcome for the increased medicalisation of human reproduction.
authors.affiliation: Department of Sociology, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada. Electronic address: cbenoit@uvic.ca.
authors.forename: Cecilia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Benoit
authors.affiliation: University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.
authors.forename: Maria
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Zadoroznyj
authors.affiliation: Department of Sociology, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada.
authors.forename: Helga
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Hallgrimsdottir
authors.affiliation: Department of Sociology, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada.
authors.forename: Adrienne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Treloar
authors.affiliation: Department of Sociology, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada.
authors.forename: Kara
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Taylor
mesh_terms: D001294:Attitude to Health; D001315:Australia; D002170:Canada; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D005260:Female; D033161:Government Regulation; D018166:Health Care Reform / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence / Q000639:trends*; D006801:Humans; D007400:Interprofessional Relations; D008427:Maternal Health Services / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011057:Politics; D011247:Pregnancy; D024382:Professional Role