Bjorn Hvinden

• PhD Sociology, University of Oslo, 1992
• Professor Emeritus at Norwegian Social Research (NOVA)

Both climate change and increasing economic inequalities are large challenges posed to policymakers today, but we know surprisingly little about the (potential) interrelationship between these two policy domains. This chapter examines the statistical association between climate change attitudes and attitudes towards distribution and welfare state r...

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The chapter examines three types of welfare policy measures (income maintenance, social services and social regulation) for the employment of young adults with disabilities in the Nordic countries. The chapter demonstrates that the composition of the policy measures have changed since the late 1990s. On this background the chapter asks if the polic...

Offering new knowledge and insights into European job markets, this book explores how young men and women experience job insecurity. Focusing on the ways in which young adults deal with this by actively increasing their chances of getting a job through a variety of methods, it shows how governmental policies can be altered to reduce early job insec...

Providing original insights into the factors causing early job insecurity in European countries, this book examines the short- and long-term consequences. It assesses public policies seeking to diminish the risks to young people facing prolonged job insecurity and reduce the severity of these impacts. Based on the findings of a major study of nine...

The inclusion of young people in the labour market is a major policy challenge across Europe. In particular, we know that certain groups of young people have a higher-than-average risk of marginalisation and exclusion. Young persons with disability represent one important category of vulnerable persons. In the 2000s, the Nordic countries (along wit...

In this volume, we have demonstrated that a main challenge for the Nordic governments is to facilitate the transition from education to quality employment for all, including more vulnerable youth groups. Additionally, the Nordic countries have experienced challenges in their secondary education programmes, as well as in their active labour market p...

In recent years Norwegian social policy has undergone considerable changes. At the same time the number of persons in receipt of means-tested social assistance and disability pension has increased significantly. It is therefore of particular interest to explore the concrete patterns of relationships between the organisational efforts by clients and...

The challenge of including youth in the labour market is a problem which many European countries are facing. Examining the transition from education to employment, Youth, Diversity and Employment combines insights from law and the social sciences to link the challenges and specific barriers facing young and vulnerable people today. Based on origina...

This chapter shows real differences in how the intergenerational contract is seen by young and old in five European welfare states. There is a general consensus on the importance of combating old-age poverty, although most people expected the state safety net to weaken. In the UK in particular and in Denmark and Norway people anticipated greater in...

This paper uses innovative democratic forums carried out in Germany, Norway, and the United Kingdom to examine people’s ideas about welfare-state priorities and future prospects. We use a moral economy framework in the context of regime differences and the move towards neo-liberalism across Europe. Broadly speaking, attitudes reflect regime differe...

Research using innovative methods to investigate attitudes to welfare futures in Germany, Norway and the UK. This paper uses innovative democratic forums carried out in Germany, Norway and the UK to examine people’s ideas about welfare state priorities and future prospects. We use a moral economy framework in the context of regime differences and t...

Since the 1990s, a number of reforms have taken place in European social policy that have impacted the opportunities for persons with disabilities to be full and active members of society. The policy reforms have aimed to change the balance between citizens’ rights and duties, their opportunities to enjoy choice and autonomy, to live in the communi...

In this chapter, we discuss scholarly perspectives on life courses, especially the life courses of persons with disabilities. We are particularly interested in what analyses of life courses tell us about changes over time in the scope of exercising Active Citizenship in the nine countries studied. In principle, we are also looking for possible link...

In the introduction we set ourselves the task to identify the conditions that are required for Active Citizenship to become an experienced reality for persons with disabilities. To undertake this endeavour we have adopted a multidimensional concept of Active Citizenship focusing on three dimensions: security, autonomy and influence. Drawing on find...

We started this book by asking whether and to what extent European and national policies enhance the Active Citizenship of persons with disabilities. The previous chapters have examined whether such policies have included explicit goals, appropriate means and coordinated efforts. Several of the chapters have identified changes that may improve the...

In this chapter, we set ourselves two tasks. First, we ask what perspectives, concepts and models can help us to capture the complexity and the development of public policy and legislation of significance for exercising Active Citizenship by persons with disabilities. We discuss how such policy and legislation build upon - as well as structure - th...

Over the last three decades, a number of reforms have taken place in European social policy with an impact on the opportunities for persons with disabilities to be full and active members of society. The policy reforms have aimed to change the balance between citizens’ rights and duties and the opportunities to enjoy choice and autonomy, live in th...

Being an ‘active citizen’ involves exercising social rights and duties, enjoying choice and autonomy, and participating in political decision-making processes which are of importance for one’s life. Amid the new challenges facing contemporary welfare states, debate over just how ‘active’ citizens can and ought to be has redoubled. Presenting resear...

Discovering methods to combat poverty and social exclusion has now become a major political challenge in Europe. Combating Poverty in Europe offers an original and timely analysis of how this challenge is met by actors at European, national and subnational levels. Building on a European study comparing Germany, Italy, Poland, Sweden and the United...

This chapter addresses the implications of climate change for welfare institutions in Europe. We argue that the linkages between social policy and climate change have consequences for what it means to make welfare states sustainable. Against this background, the chapter highlights four types of issues or questions that the research agenda on climat...

The Scandinavian welfare model is characterized by high spending, strong universal public services, high social investment, and relatively high equality in gender roles. The three main Scandinavian countries (Denmark, Norway, and Sweden) have successfully reformed their welfare systems to contain costs and manage population ageing. They have reform...

The Nordic states have extensive welfare systems in which the local social services are an important component. Despite a growing research on disaster resilience, we lack research examining in systematic way whether and how local social services in the Nordic countries contribute to resilience. Aiming to fill this gap, this article asks whether we...

The article argues that the Capability Approach can enrich sociology’s capacity to link human agency and structure in dynamic analyses of social inequality and marginality. While many read the Capability Approach as excessively individualistic, the validity of this view is less obvious if we take into account the key role of conversion processes in...

In this book we ask whether European and national polices are enhancing the Active Citizenship of persons with disabilities. More specifically, we investigate whether such policies include explicit goals, appropriate means and coordinated efforts. To the extent that the answer is no, we consider what kinds of changes are called for in the design an...

The commentary addresses the scope for synergy between climate change policy and social policy in the European Union (EU) from a ‘sustainable welfare’ perspective. The emerging sustainable welfare approach is oriented to the satisfaction of human needs within ecological limits, in an intergenerational and global perspective. While the overall goals...

This book asks how governments in Europe go about combating poverty and social exclusion. Poverty and social exclusion are complex problems, and a number of actors are involved in efforts to handle them. The complexity creates a range of challenges of political capacity and organization. The financial crisis that began in 2008 is an important conte...

This chapter explores factors that structure local welfare systems. We argue that local welfare systems draw on unique cultural, social and economic resources and mobilise actors that provide a unique feature to that particular system of welfare, yet within their respective welfare state regime context. ‘Local welfare’ cannot be reduced to the effo...

Forholdet mellom forskning og politikk kan langt på vei forstås som et bytteforhold. Dette kapitlet analyserer betingelsene for produktivt samspill mellom forskning og funksjonshemmingspolitikk. Først gjør vi rede for vårt analytiske perspektiv på relasjonene mellom aktører innen forskning og funksjonshemmingspolitikk. Deretter sammenligner vi hvor...

The Nordic countries are admired for high employment, low levels of poverty and inequality, encompassing welfare states, and peaceful industrial relations. Yet the model is criticised for hampering the employment opportunities of vulnerable groups. The literature identifies several potential mechanisms of exclusion. Compressed wage structures may m...

This paper argues that the Capability Approach of Amartya Sen and Marta Nussbaum can enrich sociology by linking human agency and structure. Finding ways to capture the linkages between agency and structure (or alternatively; between micro and macro) remains a never ending story in sociology, despite efforts by some of the sharpest minds in the dis...

This article asks how the legitimacy (recognition or misrecognition) of "ethnicity" and "disability" influences public policies to promote the inclusion of young adults in the Nordic labour markets. The article assesses the case for seeing misrecognition and lack of accommodation as significant factors behind troubled transitions from school to wor...

Building on a review of recent scholarship about citizenship and an overview of major challenges for contemporary societies and welfare provision, the chapter proposes a new conceptual framework for studies of citizenship. According to this framework, citizenship is multidimensional, incorporating reciprocity of rights and duties, freedom of choice...

Whether the Nordic countries have stemmed the international tide of inequality better, worse or merely different from other Western countries is the question addressed in this final chapter. Applying the results of the analysis in the previous chapters, this chapter prepares trends across different aspects of inequality and the Nordic welfare model...

This introductory chapter describes why and how the Nordic welfare model is interesting in the current era of reforming labour markets and social protection policies. The basic characteristics of the model are set out, with an emphasis on equality. This is followed by a discussion of the debated pressures on the equality aspect of the model that ar...

The Nordic countries have been able to raise living standards and curb inequalities without compromising economic growth. But with social inequalities on the rise how do they fare when compared to countries with alternative welfare models, such as the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Germany? Taking a comparative perspective, this book casts new...

Taking a comparative perspective, this book casts new light on the changing inequalities in Europe.

Introduction: inequality on the rise? Nordic mass media regularly announce the end of equality in the Nordic countries – is it a reality or merely another example of journalistic dramatisation and myth-building? In this book we aim to clarify in what ways equality has actually characterised the Nordic countries and to what extent we now find less e...

This report maps and compares contrasting models for labour market inclusion of persons with disabilities in selected European countries (Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, and the United Kingdom) and the United States. Building on a systematic review and reanalysis of the existing literature and statistics in the field, and assessmen...

Abstract The overall theme of the volume is the understanding of human dignity, autonomy and human rights in health care and social services in modern welfare states, with special reference to the Nordic countries. Focus is put in vulnerable groups such as children, individuals with cognitive impairment or mental illness and persons with physical d...

This chapter examines how the evolving supranational equal treatment approach is challenging the profile of Nordic disability policy. We ask whether the adoption of binding disability rights in the Nordic countries will contribute to ensuring the equal treatment, human dignity and autonomy of persons with disabilities. We answer this question in th...

Purpose To clarify the core characteristics of Nordic activation policies in the context of typologies of European activation governance. Design/methodology/approach The paper analyses activation governance in the light of the basic values and beliefs behind the formation of the Nordic social protection systems in the mid‐20th century. Recent mode...

This book offers an innovative analysis of the ways in which the relationship between citizens and welfare states - social citizenship - becomes more dynamic and multifaceted as a result of Europeanization and individualization. Written by interdisciplinary contributors from politics, sociology, law and philosophy, it examines the transformation of...

The Nordic welfare states are affluent and have highly developed and encompassing public systems of income maintenance and services aiming at an equalization of life chances and opportunities. The provision of assistive technology has been an essential part of this policy tradition. All five countries have a national system for the allocation of as...

This article examines perceptions of and response to food risk by consumers who are allergic to or intolerant of certain food types. Food risk in general and risk related to genetically modified (GM) food are discussed, as well as issues of responsibility and judgment regarding food labeling. Eight hundred individuals were recruited for a postal qu...

The paper examines the claim that international migration and increased ethnic diversity challenge the sustainability and legitimacy of redistributive welfare states. Immigration might potentially lessen pressures related to demographic ageing, labour shortages in welfare services and the funding of future pensions in many European countries. The p...

This chapter emphasises the pressures ‘from above’ and ‘from below’ that are shaping the transformation of welfare states. It outlines the dynamic relationship between the different conceptions of citizenship that are produced in these transformations. It differentiates the various forms of citizenship that are implicated in the modernisation of we...

Introduction Dynamic change in the relationships between states and citizens is a feature of countries undergoing programmes of welfare reform and restructuring. Such changes involve new ways of ‘governing the social’ in which citizens are expected (or themselves expect) to play more active roles in handling risks and promoting their own welfare. I...

Nordic welfare states have usually been characterized by encompassing or institutional systems of public provisions, both in general and for people with impairment in particular. Provisions have been perceived as being more universalistic in coverage, more generous in terms of benefit levels and availability of services, and with a greater emphasis...

In the last decades disability has emerged as a key area for European social policy. So far there have been few indications of a general trend towards greater similarity in the disability policies of member states. This paper argues that attempts to promote common approaches and patterns of effort between member states are more likely to succeed in...

In this article we discuss the challenges facing European disability policy and in what direction it is likely to move in the years to come. We argue that the emerging interaction between transnational and national policy development is of crucial importance. At the core of this relationship is the division and interplay between policies of redistr...

Spørsmål om avhengighet av offentlige tjenesteytelser og fattigdom står nå sentralt på den politiske dagsorden både i Norge og en rekke andre vesteuropeiske land. Det hevdes med økende kraft fra ulike hold at velferdsstaten står overfor større utfordringer enn det som kan løses av de nåværende aktører og gjennom de foreliggende ordninger og styring...

Disability is one of the key areas of concern for social security. It represents one of the major risks for loss of income from work among people of working age and, historically, it belongs to the risks first covered by social insurance. All countries with encompassing income maintenance schemes have special provisions for people with disabilities...

The Netherlands and Norway are among the many countries that have faced serious challenges to the sustainability of their social security systems in recent years. In this article we examine the growth in benefit schemes related to illness and disability since they have been one source of particular concern in both countries. The Netherlands came to...

The two main aspects of an employment relationship are exchange and membership. The corresponding organizational processes, allocation and socialization, are examined. The possible tensions between newcomer and oldtimers are linked to work and organizational cultures. The boundary- crossing of employees is related to the internal reward system and...

The paper examines the basis for claiming that international migration is diminishing the sustainability of redistributive welfare states. Immigration might potentially lessen pressures related to demographic ageing and the funding of future pensions in these welfare states. The paper addresses different accounts of why this kind of mutually benefi...