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Labour Market Policies in Transition: From Social Engineering to Standby-Ability
Abstract
The advent of ‘the Swedish Model’ was related to questions of economic crisis and high unemployment levels in the 1920s. New ideas, connecting insufficient demand with unemployment, were embraced by the Social Democratic Party (Blyth 2001). In the 1930s, the Social Democratic gov-ernment took a more pro-active role in stabilizing employment on a high level. New arrangements between state, business and labour were insti-tutionalized through the Saltsjöbaden Accord in 1938. At the end of the 1940s, following the government’s requests to moderate wage demands, the Rehn-Meidner Model was launched as an ingenious solution to the diverse aims of economic growth, full employment, price stability, and maintaining union solidarity.
... For example, the center-right government of 2006-2014 introduced subsidies, such as the ROT and RUT reforms in 2007 (deductions for repairs, conversions, extensions, maintenance, cleaning and laundry services) and the tax relief for restaurants in 2012, to increase the market for personal services and expand employment (Konjunkturinstitutet 2015;Tillväxtanalys 2019). Moreover, subsidized employment has been the main measure of the governments' active labor market programs for unemployment since the 1990s, while investments in labor market training have decreased significantly (Bengtsson & Berglund 2012). The majority of individuals in subsidized employment are foreign-born (Engdahl & Forslund 2019). ...
... However, a longer time living in Sweden reduces that risk less for non-European in 2012-2014 (from 59% to 42%) compared to the earlier period (from 60% to 33%). The immigrant categories in 1998-2000, living 0-5 years in Sweden and arriving between 1993 and 2000, are largely the same categories found in 2012, living in Sweden 11-20 years, that is, arriving between 1992. Consequently, the decrease among non-European from 60% probability of working in Quintile 1 1998-2000 (0-5 years in Sweden) to 42% 2012-2014 (11-20 years) is significant, indicating that several individuals have left the lowest paid quintile. ...
... For 1998year. For -2000for 2012. Robust standard errors in parentheses. ...
This study focuses on immigrants’ labor market prospects in Sweden and their subsequent opportunities for mobility in the occupational structure with particular reference to the likelihood that immigrants of European and non-European origins work in low and high-paid jobs. We use data from the Swedish Labor Force Survey and compare outcomes of two key periods: 1998–2000 and 2012–2014. Our findings reveal an increasing ethnicization of the occupational structure, as the number of immigrants in low-paid employment has increased over time. We also find tendencies of polarization of the occupational structure that have not been conducive to equal opportunities for immigrants on the Swedish labor market who face various disadvantages and migration history penalties. Immigrants of non-European descent are at particular risk of working in low-paid employment and of having fewer opportunities for high-paid jobs. Thus, recent changes in the Swedish occupational structure contribute toward reinforcing ethnic inequalities and severely challenge the notion and ideal of Swedish equality.
... The socioeconomic results of the Swedish model were at their height in the 1980s, with extremely low unemployment figures, general welfare reaching unprecedented levels, and a large public sector employing up to 40 per cent of all employees . In working life, democratic ambitions and union influence gained significant ground, and strict employment protection, combined with generous unemployment benefits and large investments in active labour market policies, made workers highly secure in the labour market (Bengtsson and Berglund 2012;Sandberg 2013). Moreover, social inequalities in the 1980s were historically and internationally low, and the wage share of GDP was larger than it had ever been before (Bengtsson 2014). ...
... At the end of that decade, the generosity of unemployment benefits peaked with a replacement rate of up to 90 per cent of the former wage . Since then, governments have been inclined to decrease their generosity (Bengtsson and Berglund 2012). Especially when the centre-right government took office in 2006, large changes in the unemployment insurance were introduced (see Chapter 10). ...
... A key measure was training and reskilling to prepare workers for those jobs. When unemployment skyrocketed in the 1990s, training was, as in previous times, believed to be the main measure to expand (Lindvall 2011;Bengtsson and Berglund 2012). However, difficulties emerged with regard to predicting which branches training should be directed towards and keeping up the quality of measures rigged for a full-employment labour market. ...
... The socioeconomic results of the Swedish model were at their height in the 1980s, with extremely low unemployment figures, general welfare reaching unprecedented levels, and a large public sector employing up to 40 per cent of all employees (Berglund and Esser 2014). In working life, democratic ambitions and union influence gained significant ground, and strict employment protection, combined with generous unemployment benefits and large investments in active labour market policies, made workers highly secure in the labour market (Bengtsson and Berglund 2012;Sandberg 2013). Moreover, social inequalities in the 1980s were historically and internationally low, and the wage share of GDP was larger than it had ever been before (Bengtsson 2014). ...
... At the end of that decade, the generosity of unemployment benefits peaked with a replacement rate of up to 90 per cent of the former wage (Berglund and Esser 2014). Since then, governments have been inclined to decrease their generosity (Bengtsson and Berglund 2012). Especially when the centre-right government took office in 2006, large changes in the unemployment insurance were introduced (see Chapter 10). ...
... A key measure was training and reskilling to prepare workers for those jobs. When unemployment skyrocketed in the 1990s, training was, as in previous times, believed to be the main measure to expand (Lindvall 2011;Bengtsson and Berglund 2012). However, difficulties emerged with regard to predicting which branches training should be directed towards and keeping up the quality of measures rigged for a full-employment labour market. ...
This chapter studies whether the occupational structure in Sweden moved towards upgrading or polarisation between 2000 and 2015. Occupational wage level and skill requirements are both used as indicators of occupational change. The chapter also scrutinises the relationship between those indicators, as well as the relationship between occupational wage level and indicators of work tasks, concluding that the wage level of occupations is a reliable indicator of the impact of technological change on the occupational structure. Overall, the chapter reveals upgrading in the Swedish labour market with strong growth in employment in upper-level occupations, and weaker growth or decline in occupations further down the occupational wage structure. However, employment in the lowest-paid occupations has neither declined nor increased, making the picture of occupational change in Sweden more ambiguous. Moreover, taking the important distinction between private and public employment into consideration, private employment moves clearly in the direction of polarisation, while changes in public employment add to upgrading. The chapter also shows that various social categories are affected differently by occupational change. While females still constitute the large majority in the lowest-paid occupations, they also benefit from upgrading tendencies, with increasing numbers in higher-paid occupations. Males are more exposed to polarisation than females. Furthermore, foreign-born people are increasingly present in the lowest-paid occupations, and job quality and union presence are deteriorating in those jobs.
... The UI has become much less generous and covers fewer employees and active measures have been reduced. In combination with other measures, this can be described as a change from a 'high road' to a 'low road' policy in the search for full employment (Bengtsson and Berglund, 2012). On the other hand, the government has been careful not to touch the EPL, arguing that it does not affect the employment rate, which is a key concern. ...
... This means that the rules of 'first in, last out' and time of notice are intact. Modern unemployment insurance was introduced in Sweden 1974, the same year as LAS (see Bengtsson & Berglund, 2012). Since then, however, the UI has been changed several times -mostly in the direction of a less generous UI. ...
... There are also signs that the public discourse about the unemployment insurance has changed since 2006. The right-wing/ centre government has argued strongly that it is the 'work strategy' that is in force and that benefits are only to be used as a last resort and for a very short time period (Bengtsson and Berglund, 2012). ...
The article studies how changes in 2007 in the Swedish unemployment insurance (UI) have influenced employees’ turnover cognitions. It is argued that the combination of a strict employment protection legislation (EPL) and a generous UI in 2006 made employees more inclined to risky transitions. The post-2007 combination of a strict EPL and an ungenerous UI reinforces non-mobility intentions. Analyses of two surveys show a smaller proportion of employees with turnover cognitions in 2010 than in 2006.
... Despite loosening some of them, social democratic governments have not reversed many of the changes introduced. As a result, over the last few decades unemployment insurance has moved in a direction that can only be called neoliberal, becoming less generous, tightening criteria, and putting more pressure on the unemployed to find a new job (Bengtsson and Berglund, 2012;Gordon, 2019). ...
... Social democratic governments have left several changes in place -and added some themselves -, leading to stricter entitlement requirements and less generous income protection. Together with changes in other key labour market institutions -the wage bargaining system (Baccaro and Howell, 2017), employment protection legislation (Emmenegger, 2014) and active labour market policies (Bengtsson and Berglund, 2012) -the direction of the changes can only be described as neoliberal, exposing workers more to market forces (Lindellee, 2018). ...
This article discusses the multi-faceted and changing role played by trade unions in providing unemployment benefits in Sweden, a country using the so-called Ghent system. As an important institutional feature explaining the high rate of unionisation in the Nordics, the system has been much debated. This article provides a comprehensive account of the retrenchment of the state unemployment benefit system (UBS) and the development of occupational and private UBS pillars providing complementary protection. It also introduces an ongoing reform discussion where the social partners are proposed to govern the unemployment insurance system via collective agreements, while retaining the union-linked insurance funds. The core institutional feature of the Ghent system-voluntary membership of a union-linked insurance fund-is turning out to be highly resilient despite frequent attempts to weaken the union power stemming from it. However, the system's role in providing unemployment protection has changed due to its development into a multi-pillar structure, meaning that its future prospects are uncertain.
... We find it to be a reasonable argument, that an overly strong focus on 'forms' tends to overlook 'disjunctures' between form and function, and structures and practices performed (Baccaro and Howell 2017: 14f.). There are certain tendencies toward neoliberalization through an increase in employer discretion and the corresponding loss of trade union influence on wage-setting as performance-based individual and differentiated wagesetting has expanded in Sweden (Bengtsson and Berglund 2012;Fransson and Stüber 2016;Granqvist and Regnér 2007;Thörnquist and Thörnqvist 2017;Waddington et al. 2019). ...
... Wages may be differentiated due to occupation or performance (Lindeberg 1992;Murphy 2019). Differentiation based on performance relates to individualized desert-based principles of compensation (Baccaro and Howell 2017;Bengtsson and Berglund 2012). The basic idea with performance-based differentiation is to achieve a wage spread in the organization (Kjellberg 2019), to reward good performances and 'to direct people to do even better jobs next year' (M1, Muni.; cf. ...
Wage formation in Sweden has been decentralized, and the introduction of individual performance‐based pay has increased employer discretion. This article explores practices of local‐level wage determination and argues that existing analyses still have too much focus on the formal (regulatory) institutions to explain what that is going on under the surface. Drawing on interviews with HR, managers, employees and union representatives from both public and private sector organizations, the study concludes that individual and differentiated wage‐setting is delimited locally by small budgets and the actors’ cultural–cognitive and normative expectations. Even though there have been radical changes in collective agreements and policies, we find strong elements of path dependency in local wage determination practices.
... The AF also verifi es whether those unemployed with unemployment benefi ts are actively searching for a new job. That function has been emphasized during the past 10–15 years (Bengtsson and Berglund, 2012). There is a rather large arsenal of different measures that the employment offi cer can use for the unemployed, which we will return to later on in this study. ...
... Alternatively, the unemployed person should have worked, uninterrupted, at least 480 hours, and not less than 50 hours in a single month, in the six months prior to unemployment. The working condition has changed several times during the years, with the tendency of becoming stricter (Bengtsson and Berglund, 2012). ...
This report focuses on labour market mobility in the Republic of Kazakhstan and the Russian Federation, in particular mobility that entails a transition from one region to another within the countries. We will examine how labour market programmes (LMPs) should be designed to promote mobility. In order to identify relevant possibilities, Kazakhstan and Russia have been compared to three Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. The central idea that the report seeks to communicate is that the two countries can develop their existing labour market policies to create an infrastructure of programmes and measures that facilitate and reinforce labour market mobility.
See: http://www.ilo.org/moscow/information-resources/publications/WCMS_551037/lang--en/index.htm
... National labour market policy has also changed orientation over the last decades, especially during the centre-right government office period, increasingly relying on incentive-enforcement rather than on upskilling. Less costly programmes, such as job coaching and general programmes, such as the Job and Development Programme and the Youth Job Programme, have replaced upskilling -to the extent that Sweden in 2010 scored below the OECD average pertaining to investment in vocational training (Bengtsson and Berglund 2012). The Social Democratic-led government taking office in 2014 has only begun to slightly re-direct ALMPs. ...
... The Coordination Unions allow for more individually adapted measures (albeit for a small group of unemployed only). The local activation programmes also reflect the reduced investment in active labour market policy nationally (Bengtsson and Berglund 2012;Bengtsson 2014), as well as the strict activation principles implemented in the health insurance, which forces municipalities to develop local solutions to the problems arising when increasingly many people become dependent on the last resort-net. ...
Much welfare research is based on the assumption that welfare regimes are homogenous entities. Nevertheless, the practice of activation may vary considerably within states. This is especially so in a country such as Sweden where municipalities and state agencies are both involved in activation. This article studies local activation policy and practice in three Swedish municipalities, representing three distinct ‘local worlds of activation’. The analysis shows that policy orientations in the municipalities studied ranged from ‘work-first’ to ‘life-first’ approaches to activation. Governance arrangements and the role of private services and actors in service delivery differed significantly too, ranging from strictly market-based forms of governance to classical public administration. The article moreover shows how the different activation approaches were reflected in the radically different usages of Coordination Unions, as multi-party collaborate organisational structures established for activation policy implementation for certain target groups. Thus, activation must be approached not as a fixed and universal policy for social inclusion, but as susceptible to local practice and hence open to influence from local politics, established local traditions, patterns of networking and modes of collaborating, as the notion of ‘local words of activation’ intends to capture.
... In Sweden too, recent developments have accentuated the increasing dualisation of labour market policy; a categorization of the unemployed into "normal job-seekers", who can be offered job counselling or self-service activities, and "disadvantaged" groups, which need special measures (Peralta Prieto, 2006). This dualisation is reinforced by a dramatic reduction of investment in active labour market policy spending (Bengtsson and Berglund 2012). ...
... The cornerstone of Swedish labour market policy, the Work Strategy, has over recent decades been translated into a sharpening of the qualifications for receiving unemployment benefits and social insurance. Activation in the form of increased conditionality and re-commodification has replaced investments in upskilling and training (Bengtsson and Berglund, 2012). Labour market policy programmes have been reduced in favour of employment on the regular labour market and job-matching measures have been emphasized in the national labour market's policy directives. ...
... Restructuring policy was established in the 1950s, based on the Rehn-Meidner model. This model was the result of collaboration between the state and the labour movement and became the cornerstone of Swedish labour market policy through which workers were transferred from low-productivity to high-productivity companies through active labour market policies (Bengtsson and Berglund, 2012). The 1970s witnessed key moments of state intervention: for example, the 1976 Codetermination Act and the 1974 Employment Protection Act established redundancy notice periods, semi-compulsory rules on selection criteria, the requirement for employers to inform and consult unions over restructuring and encouraged local collective agreements. ...
This paper compares responses to crises through analysis of labour market policy in Sweden and the UK between the Global Financial Crisis to the COVID-19 pandemic. In drawing on ‘restructuring regimes’, we offer insights into the dynamics of change in the two countries, focussing on the development of short-time working schemes. We argue that Sweden learned lessons from the GFC that helped prepare for future crises, whereas the UK’s muted response left it ill-prepared for the COVID-19 crisis. The paper contributes to debates around restructuring regimes through an analysis of the journey between two crises in which we characterise Sweden’s approach as proactive and pre-emptive and the UK’s as reactive and ad hoc. By locating analysis in traditions of self-regulation and voluntarism in Sweden and the UK, respectively, we expand upon the role that industrial relations play in maintaining the stability, or not, of national restructuring regimes.
... After the introduction, the fees were raised dramatically -for some workers, they were six times higher than before. This was done in combination with stricter qualification requirements (Bengtsson and Berglund, 2012;Lindellee and Berglund, 2022), with the aim of lowering the reservation wage of the unemployed. As a result, many workers left both the insurance funds and unions altogether. ...
Can the Nordic wage-setting model, where social partners decide wages through collective agreements, counteract a growing low-paid sector? This article tests four definitions of low-paid jobs to analyze whether this sector has grown for the period 2005–2020 in Sweden. Despite policy changes pointing towards growth, all definitions show a slight decrease in low-paid jobs over time. The authors argue that the industrial relations system, with the aim of keeping the industry wage increases in check to aid export competitiveness, also sets a uniform level wage that limits low-paid jobs. It is also found that low pay in the Swedish setting is partly a result of working less than full-time or having unstable employment, and service workers and those with low education are becoming increasingly common in this position.
... Neoliberal reforms and post-fordist transformations of work have led to a sharper distinction between short-term unemployed individuals and long-term unemployed individuals, i.e. individuals who have been unemployed longer than one year (Bengtsson and Berglund, 2012;Helman, 2020). The increase in jobseekers who are coded as impaired is primarily found within the latter category. ...
This paper accounts for a study of the joint ambitions of the Swedish Public employment office and social enterprises to integrate jobseekers with impairments in the labor market. The number of jobseekers with impairments has increased in western labor markets. The Swedish labor market is a particular case in point. Why? I use critical disability studies in combination with Marxist studies on immaterial labor to develop the following answer: An increasing number of jobseekers are diagnosed as impaired, not because their bodily constitution makes them unfit to handle manual labor, but because their socio-cultural characteristics make them unfit to handle immaterial forms of labor. Furthermore, I show how the diagnosis of these jobseekers as impaired does not lead to that they are also considered disabled. On the contrary, they are considered to have a particular, bio-medically defined fit and ability when it comes to handling simple, manual and low paid forms of work. Hereby, I argue that they are made up as a bio-medically defined “lumpenproletariat”.
... Traditionally, during times of recession, the state has intervened in the functioning of the labour market actively by matching vacancies with job-seekers, arranging retraining programs, work placements, sheltered employments and subsidises so as to stimulate employment. The so-called Swedish model is thus known for combining active and preventive labour market measures with capitalist interests of economic growth (Bengtsson and Berglund, 2012). ...
Purpose
The purpose of this article is to complement the literature understanding present labour market measures as infused by a so-called neoliberal rationality, fostering self-managerial selves by means of self-inspection. It does so by providing a much-needed illustration of how such “work on the self” is achieved in practice.
Design/methodology/approach
The analysis draws on ethnographic fieldwork tracing the “active society” at the local level, depicting practices aimed at activating welfare clients in a local labour market measure organised in a rural Swedish municipality. Here, the author was offered to undergo a method aimed at enhancing participants' employability. As a result, data consists of ethnographic as well as auto-ethnographic accounts from this experience.
Findings
This analysis shows how destabilisation of subjectivity was central to the remoulding of individuals into employable and self-reliant selves. Moreover, by dispersing responsibility to the individual, it is shown how the organisation was able to refrain from accountability, hence reducing the levels of uncertainty and ambiguity that is part and parcel of people-processing welfare organisations.
Practical implications
The article concludes with the warning that, in the wake of “local worlds of activation”, municipalities may sometimes draw on questionable assumptions of the human mind and behaviour, as well as the vulnerability of individuals' self-understanding, as a way of managing the “active society” at the local level.
Originality/value
The literature on activation lacks ethnographic accounts depicting concrete practices of turning the socially excluded into active and employable selves. Here, this article offers an illustrating example of such practices in action.
... In most European countries, the neoliberal turn is associated with a gradual sharpening of the distinction between short-term unemployed individuals and long-term unemployed individuals (Bengtsson and Berglund, 2012). Among the latter category there has been a considerable increase of individuals who are coded as impaired (Holmqvist et al., 2013;Foster and Wass, 2013;Holmqvist, 2009;Lindsay et al., 2014;Vanderkinderen et al., 2012). ...
This paper accounts for a study of the largest employer in Scandinavia of jobseekers with designated impairments. Like many similar organizations, this organization has undergone a transformation from a provider of ‘sheltered work programs’, which remove this category of jobseekers from the labour market, to a provider of ‘individual placement programs’, which instead integrates them in the labour market. I use Foucauldian governmentality studies to show how this transformation problematizes basic assumptions underlying organizational disability studies. While these studies are variegated, they have generally found that jobseekers with designated impairments are often treated as disabled, as less employable than non-impaired individuals and in need of care and rehabilitation. The study presented below points in another direction. It shows that jobseekers’ designated impairments are treated as signs of their special abilities for particular jobs, rather than as signs of their disabilities. These findings, I argue, are illustrative of how a neoliberal governmentality tends towards replacing the distinction between the able and the disable with a bio-medical structuring of different qualities of human capital. While it leads to that individuals with impairments are integrated in the labour market, I argue that it also leads to that they are treated as having an exclusive, medically designated fit for simple and often dirty labour.
... Employees with individual and differentiated pay are subjected to yearly performance appraisal reviews, and performance-based pay put a greater focus on organizations' valuation of individual employees (Bengtsson & Berglund 2012). Jensen and Prieur (2016) discuss how transitions in working life have changed the expectations of employees. ...
The spread of performance-based and variable pay systems has affected expectations on employee contributions and remuneration, which have become increasingly personalized and individualized. Based on a theoretical valuation studies approach, this study of performance-based pay systems in Sweden shows that performance appraisals are (e)valuations of employees’ yearly performance in which they are prized and (ap)praised at the same time. Through a document analysis of performance criteria from four organizations, the study analyzes how values expressed refer to Boltanski and Thévenot’s six orders of worth. The analysis resulted in a theoretical construction of a joint ideal of Employees of Greatness, against which employees are measured and remunerated. The existence of the ideal of employee greatness is explained by the increasing congruence of organizational ideals in private and public sectors, as principles from emotional and cognitive forms of capitalist organization are superimposed on traditional industrial capitalist organizational ideals.
... In most European countries, the neoliberal turn is associated with a gradual sharpening of the distinction between short-term unemployed individuals and long-term unemployed individuals (Bengtsson and Berglund, 2012 Samhall is the largest of a range of social enterprises whose business it is to integrate impaired individuals in the labour market. Samhall is owned by the Swedish state and is with its 27 000 employees the largest employer of impaired individuals in Scandinavia. ...
This paper accounts for a study of the largest employer in Scandinavia of jobseekers with designated impairments. Like many similar organizations, this organization has undergone a transformation from a provider of "sheltered work programs", which remove this category of jobseekers from the labour market, to a provider of "individual placement programs", which instead integrates them in the labour market. I use Foucauldian governmentality studies to show how this transformation problematizes basic assumptions underlying organizational disability studies. While these studies are variegated, they have generally found that jobseekers with designated impairments are often treated as disabled, as less employable than non-impaired individuals and in need of care and rehabilitation. The study presented below points in another direction. It shows that jobseekers' designated impairments are treated as signs of their special abilities for particular jobs, rather than as signs of their disabilities. These findings, I argue, are illustrative of how a neoliberal governmentality tends towards replacing the distinction between the able and the disable with a bio-medical structuring of different qualities of human capital. While it leads to that individuals with impairments are integrated in the labour market, I argue that it also leads to that they are treated as having an exclusive, medically designated fit for simple and often dirty labour.
... Up until the 1990's, a holistic view of individuals' life situation and their activation and empowerment pervaded national social and labour market policies and the strategies to strengthen the resources of the unemployed in Sweden (Bengtsson and Berglund 2012;Esping-Andersen 1990). These strategies were realized in relation to the social democratic welfare regime's aim to guarantee all its citizens social rights, including the right to work. ...
The aim of this study was to examine how employed descendants of immigrants in Sweden perceive that interactions with public officials have benefitted their occupational aspirations and attainments. We conducted qualitative semi-structured interviews with twelve female and nine male descendants of immigrants, followed by an abductive thematic analysis. Applying a theoretical framework of social capital, we found three main influences of public officials from respondents’ perspectives: 1) connectedness, 2) supporting personal goals and focusing on possibilities, and 3) mediation of knowledge and information. We discuss and analyse the symbolic resources deriving from these influences, e.g. increased motivation and self-belief, and conceptualize these resources as social capital contributing to the occupational aspirations and attainments of immigrants’ descendants.
... Then, efforts to support the individual are intensified. However, resource constraints limit the options available in practice, because the more costly training measures have been replaced with less expensive job-counselling services (Bengtsson and Berglund 2012). Since demand for work placement and training exceeds the availability of such measures, most clients are offered coaching, CV writing courses and similar instruments. ...
A central goal of European activation policies is to provide coherent and actively inclusive employment and social services. This book offers new insights on the effective governance and implementation of such policies.
Utilizing empirical studies from six European welfare states, expert contributors explore how different institutional contexts influence localized service delivery and how local authorities deal with the associated coordination challenges. Acknowledging that neither decentralization nor provider networks necessarily prevent fragmented service provision, Martin Heidenreich and Deborah Rice illustrate that an understanding of the European budgetary context, as well as individual network brokerage, is vital for a successful integration of employment and social policies at the local level.
Timely and engaging, this innovative book will provide new theoretical perspectives and invaluable empirical materials for academics and students in the field of comparative social policy. Policy makers and officials will also appreciate the editors’ practical approach.
... Unemployment insurance is voluntary in Sweden but mandatory in Norway, where every employee whose working time is reduced by at least 50 percent, and who has met the minimum income requirement during the last 12 months or during the last three calendar years, is entitled to unemployment assistance. In Sweden, there is a two-tier system (Bengtsson and Berglund, 2012). The basic insurance scheme covers all who meet a monthly threshold of working hours, which was increased from 70 to 80 in 2007. ...
We compare the effects of relatively liberal regulations on the use of temporary employment in Sweden and more restrictive rules in Norway. We find not only that temporary work may be a stepping stone out of unemployment but also that fixed-term employees are exposed to significant risks of long-term marginalization. Moreover, fixed-term employees in Sweden face greater risks of long-run unemployment and low earnings compared to those in Norway.
... The net replacement rates for an average worker were in 2010 lowest in Sweden, intermediate in Finland and most generous in Norway (Ferrarini et al., 2012: 32). The replacement rate in Norway has been stable over the last decade but has decreased since 2002 in Sweden (Bengtsson and Berglund, 2012;Ferrarini et al., 2012). The Finnish replacement rates decreased from 2002 to 2008, then increased again (Vulkan et al., 2015: 38). ...
This article investigates employees’ attitudes towards job protection legislation and attitudinal differences between employees with different levels of job security. National surveys from three Nordic countries, using different measures of insider–outsider positions in the labour market, do not support the assumption that outsiders (those with insecure jobs) prefer laxer job protection legislation. On the contrary, workers in secure jobs seem more likely to prefer laxer regulation.
... At the low end are the UK, Poland, and the Czech Republic. Sweden, a country historically known for its generous social spending, is also found towards the lower end, to a large extent because of changes and cuts in its UI in 2007 (Bengtsson and Berglund 2012 ...
This chapter focuses on the policy proposal of flexicurity – the creation of labor market institutions that facilitate both flexibility and security for employers and employees. In substance, the flexicurity proponents argues that employment protection legislations should be liberalized, but such liberalization should be compensated by more generous unemployment benefits in combination with active labor market measures. However, a side effect of flexicurity could be an increase in job insecurity with adverse effects on well-being. This chapter investigates such outcomes among employees by studying the effect of central labor market institutions in 26 European countries. The main results are in line with the flexicurity proposal. No significance of the strictness of employment protection legislation are found for neither subjective job insecurity nor well-being, while both the use of passive and active labor market measures are important to reduce negative effects in these regards. The chapter ends with a discussion about how realistic the flexicurity proposal is in times of economic crises and austerity in Europe.
... A study of labour market policies over a period of 23 years shows that both active and passive labour market policies have been markedly reduced in Sweden and Denmark since 1992 (Bengtsson & Jakobsson, 2013). Since a centre-right government came into power in Sweden in 2006, active labour market policy has become more focused on coaching individuals to apply for jobs, while education and training opportunities have been substantially reduced (Bengtsson & Berglund 2012). Repeated studies of disposable income/poverty, comparing the Nordic region with other EU countries, show that public payments through the social insurance schemes are very important to maintaining an income level above the poverty line (Björklund & Jäntti 2011;Socialstyrelsen 2010). ...
Genom historien har skilda föreställningar om Norden skapats och uttryckts i olika delar av Europa. De har påverkat beskrivningarna av både Europa och Norden som specifika kulturella rum, och de har bidragit till att politiska, ekonomiska och filosofiska intressen och värderingar kopplats till bestämda geografiska områden. Det finns därför en spännande mångtydighet i själva begreppet Norden, och denna mångtydighet vill bokens olika artiklar belysa. Norden ses här omväxlande som en rent politisk enhet, en geografisk plats, ett kulturellt rum, och ett inre tillstånd. Genomgående fungerar Norden dock som en projektionsyta för strömningar och föreställningar, ofta positiva sådana, varför det också utgör ett mål för drömmar och resor. Men vi finner även en rörelse mot en mörkare och mer kritisk Nordenbild som löper som en röd tråd genom flera av bidragen.
... Then, efforts to support the individual are intensified. However, resource constraints limit the options available in practice, because the more costly training measures have been replaced with less expensive job-counselling services (Bengtsson and Berglund 2012). Since demand for work placement and training exceeds the availability of such measures, most clients are offered coaching, CV writing courses and similar instruments. ...
... The Finnish replacement rate decreased from 61.5% in 2002 to 50.7% in 2008, but has subsequently increased. The Swedish replacement rate has diminished since 2002 when it was 67.5%, drastically so since 2006 when the new Conservative government reduced the generosity of the UB system (Bengtsson and Berglund 2012). It should also be noted that unemployment insurance is mandatory in Norway, but following the Ghent system, voluntary in Finland and Sweden (cf. ...
This article describes how the flexicurity arrangement of low job security, high employment security, and good income security advocated by various authors affects the mental well-being of employees. Data are derived from a survey carried out in 2010–2011 among employees in Finland, Norway, and Sweden. The main findings are that all three forms of cognitive security (the perceived risk) have an independent effect on mental well-being and that the worry of insecurity (the affective component) mediates the relationship with mental well-being. The interaction effects show that high levels of employment security can alleviate the detrimental effects of job insecurity on mental well-being. No similar interaction effect was found with job insecurity and income security. The results are discussed in relation to the institutional arrangements of the Nordic countries’ welfare states, concluding that the high employment security needed for a successful flexicurity arrangement requires either low levels of unemployment or effective and extensive active labor market programs. Flexicurity is thus susceptible to economic turmoil and requires further labor market investments, even in the Nordic countries.
... A central compensating institution in case of increased insecurity among employees is unemployment insurance. In recent years Swedish unemployment benefits have been made less generous: stricter work requirements and longer waiting periods have been implemented, the demands on the unemployed individuals' search activities have been strengthened and the replacement rate has been lowered (Bengtsson and Berglund, 2012). The compensatory effect of income security on affective job insecurity found in the present study may therefore be lower than it used to be when unemployment insurance was more generous. ...
The so-called flexicurity approach suggests that security for employees can be successfully combined with flexibility for organizations and companies. This article studies if affective job insecurity (worry about losing one's job) is compensated for by perceptions of employment security (possibilities of finding an equal or better job) and income security. Data derive from a survey carried out in 2010 among employees in Sweden. The main findings are that cognitive job insecurity (the perceived risk of job loss) increases affective job insecurity, whereas both employment and income security have the opposite effect. Moreover, cognitive job insecurity and employment security interact, implying that the effect of cognitive job insecurity on affective job insecurity is reduced in the presence of employment security but is reinforced in the absence of it. These results are discussed in relation to the flexicurity approach, concluding that flexicurity may be a risky venture for employees.
... The outcome among individuals with more peripheral labour market situations is less clear. Most income maintenance programmes are tied to work-related eligibility criteria (Bengtsson and Berglund, 2012;Jørgensen, 2009;Junestav, 2011). Thus, we expect to find the working poor in the Nordic countries first and foremost among people with a peripheral labour market position. ...
Is in-work poverty a low-wage or an unemployment problem, and is it the same problem all across Europe? Because of the definitional ambiguity, we really do not know. In this article, we use longitudinal European Union-Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) data from 22 countries and derive a set of distinct clusters of labour market trajectories (LMTs) from information about monthly labour market position from a 36-month observation window and estimate in-work poverty risk for each LMT. The results show that in-work poverty is a problem that affects the self-employed and people in a marginal labour market position, that is, those who for different reasons move in and out of employment. Hence, in-work poverty is mainly an unemployment problem, not a low-wage problem. Besides the fact that the size of LMTs varies between countries, we also expected to find systematic country differences in the effect of LMTs. The analysis did not support that assumption.
... The Finnish replacement rate decreased from 61.5% in 2002 to 50.7% in 2008, but has subsequently increased. The Swedish replacement rate has diminished since 2002 when it was 67.5%, drastically so since 2006 when the new Conservative government reduced the generosity of the UB system (Bengtsson and Berglund 2012). It should also be noted that unemployment insurance is mandatory in Norway, but following the Ghent system, voluntary in Finland and Sweden (cf. ...
This article describes how the flexicurity arrangement of low job security, high employment security, and good income security advocated by various authors affects the mental well-being of employees. Data are derived from a survey carried out in 2010–2011 among employees in Finland, Norway, and Sweden. The main findings are that all three forms of cognitive security (the perceived risk) have an independent effect on mental well-being and that the worry of insecurity (the affective component) mediates the relationship with mental well-being. The interaction effects show that high levels of employment security can alleviate the detrimental effects of job insecurity on mental well-being. No similar interaction effect was found with job insecurity and income security. The results are discussed in relation to the institutional arrangements of the Nordic countries’ welfare states, concluding that the high employment security needed for a successful flexicurity arrangement requires either low levels of unemployment or effective and extensive active labor market programs. Flexicurity is thus susceptible to economic turmoil and requires further labor market investments, even in the Nordic countries.
... After this period, the Social Insurance Agency assesses the person's work ability to determine whether he or she is eligible for sickness benefits on the basis of a medical certificate [23]. In line with activation polices based on the logic of early RTW [3], the focus of policy-makers in Sweden during the last decade has been on the reformation of the social security system and strengthening the work principle in general [24][25][26]. With the aim of reducing the number of people on sick leave, it has become increasingly difficult for individuals to qualify for sickness benefits. ...
Purpose:
The aim was to analyze the role and activities of employers with regard to return to work (RTW), in local workplace practice.
Method:
Semi-structured interviews were conducted with sick-listed workers and their supervisors in 18 workplaces (n = 36). The analytical approach to study the role of employers in RTW was based on the three-domain model of social corporate responsibility. The model illustrates the linkage between corporations and their social environment, and consists of three areas of corporate responsibility: economic, legal and ethical.
Results:
Employers had difficulties in taking social responsibility for RTW, in that economic considerations regarding their business took precedence over legal and ethical considerations. Employers engaged in either "RTW activities" or "transition activities" that were applied differently depending on how valued sick-listed workers were considered to be to their business, and on the nature of the job (e.g. availability of suitable work adjustments).
Conclusions:
This study suggests that Swedish legislation and policies does not always adequately prompt employers to engage in RTW. There is a need for further attention to the organizational conditions for employers to take social responsibility for RTW in the context of business pressure and work intensification. Implications for Rehabilitation Employers may have difficulties in taking social responsibility for RTW when economic considerations regarding their business take precedence over legal and ethical considerations. Rehabilitation professionals should be aware of that outcomes of an RTW process can be influenced by the worker's value to the employer and the nature of the job (e.g. availability of suitable work adjustments). "Low-value" workers at workplaces with limited possibilities to offer workplace adjustments may run a high risk of dismissal. Swedish legislation and policies may need reforms to put more pressure on employers to promote RTW.
... Figures 1 and 3 have been standardised for unemployment level by dividing the public expenditure into passive and active measures of the GDP with the unemployment level (cf. Bengtsson & Berglund, 2012;van den Berg et al., 1997). Instead of using a cross-sectional design where we only would receive snapshots of public expenditures for specific years, the longitudinal design of this study aims to capture trends and therefore the direction of Swedish and Danish activation policies (cf. ...
The article analyses Scandinavian activation policies through the study of Swedish and Danish labour market policies since the early 1990s. Active labour market policies have been an important component in the social investment policies of the Scandinavian countries, defined as ‘an active corner’ in Europe. In this study of the trajectories of Swedish and Danish labour market policies during the last two decades, I examined official documents and analysed OECD data on public expenditures on labour market programmes. The analysis shows that institutional change of activation policies has increasingly developed towards an incentive-strengthening, work-first approach. The policy development, specifically in the case of Sweden, is here conceptualised as demands on ‘standby-ability’, a specific policy configuration of stricter work incentives, contractualisation of citizenships rights, less generous unemployment benefits and less costly forms of activation.
I rapporten presenteras resultaten från en forskningsstudie om svenska civilsamhälles-organisationers insatser för att möjliggöra arbete och sysselsättning för personer som står långt från arbetsmarknaden. Genom en kartläggning av 75 exempel visas att arbetslivs-inkluderande insatser drivs av allt från idrottsföreningar till studieförbund, hjälporganisationer, brukarorganisationer, arbetsintegrerande sociala företag, med flera. I insatserna deltar personer som har svårt att få, utföra och behålla ett arbete på grund av missgynnande faktorer i form av utländsk bakgrund, funktionsnedsättning, ohälsa, ung ålder, missbruk, hemlöshet, med mera. Insatserna omfattar arbetsförberedande åtgärder som ska göra deltagarna mer redo för arbetslivet, såsom arbetsträning, praktik och utbildning. De omfattar även arbetsintegrerande åtgärder för att stötta deltagarna i att hitta och få ett arbete, såsom anställning, företagande och frivilligarbete. Dessutom omfattas aktiverande sysselsättning som ska ge deltagarna möjlighet till arbete och sysselsättning med lägre krav och mer stöd än på övriga arbetsmarknaden, såsom daglig verksamhet, fritidsaktiviteter och vardagsrutiner. Ofta erbjuds en kedja av olika åtgärder för att deltagarna stegvis ska kunna närma sig arbetsmarknaden utifrån sina egna förutsättningar och behov.
Background:
What a stroke means for working-age persons has not been sufficiently studied from a sociological perspective.
Objective:
This article uses the empirical material of a larger study to describe and analyze how institutional practices and discourses influence attempts to return to work after a stroke.
Methods:
Semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten persons who have had a stroke and ten civil servants and professionals from the Swedish Public Employment Service, the Social Insurance Agency, and different health care institutions. The qualitative analysis was inspired by institutional ethnography.
Results:
The analysis shows how persons who have had a stroke and civil servants and professionals in welfare organizations share the same goal: a return to working life for the former. The persons in this study related to, translated, and put into practice discourses of normality and employability in this process. However, there were, at times, conflicting institutional practices between the different organizations.
Conclusions:
Conflicting institutional practices connected to the discourses of normality and employability contribute to the difficulties that persons who have had a stroke face when trying to return to work after recovery.
This paper focuses on tensions between activation principles and medicalisation in the Swedish sickness insurance and its implications for frontline caseworkers in Social Security Agencies and Public Employment Services. The right to sickness cash benefits has become stricter and more conditioned upon the person’s work ability and employability. The paper describes recent policy changes towards activation and stricter entitlement criteria for sickness benefits policy and explores the consequences of such new activation policies in terms of changed work modes for caseworkers dealing with long-term sick people’s return-to-work process. It is concluded that on the one hand frontline work contains a significant portion of discretion and professional assessment of work abilities, and on the other hand rule-bound administrative work. Furthermore, frontline workers need to apply organisational professionalism as inter-organisational cooperation is required in order to support long-term sick people to return-to-work. Medicalisation of ill-health, manifested in the right to sickness benefits has not been substantially circumscribed by new activation policies in the sickness insurance.
This article examines the changing role of the Swedish state in employment and welfare regulation in an environment that has become more market driven, commodified, and Europeanized. It begins with a theoretical reflection on the role of the state in capitalist development and a review of the recent debate on the spatiality of state regulation: the state as employer, redistributor, and arbiter, and as a shaper of employment relations and welfare. In the latter role, the state is conceptualized as employer, guarantor of employment rights, and procedural regulator, as intermediating neo-corporatist processes, as macroeconomic manager, and as welfare state. From this theoretical basis, the paper identifies changes in state employment and welfare regulation by comparing two periods: the original and mainly nation-state-based founding stage of the Swedish welfare and employment model as it developed after the 1938 Saltsjöbaden Agreement, and the period after Sweden’s accession to the European Union in 1995.
This article investigates employees’ attitudes towards job protection legislation and attitudinal differences between employees with different levels of job security. National surveys from three Nordic countries, using different measures of insider–outsider positions in the labour market, do not support the assumption that outsiders (those with insecure jobs) prefer laxer job protection legislation. On the contrary, workers in secure jobs seem more likely to prefer laxer regulation.
L'Estrategia Europea d'Ocupacio orienta les accions de tots els estats membres en materia d'ocupacio i de cohesio social. Aquesta Estrategia va fixar una serie d'objectius per al conjunt de la UE en l'horitzo del 2010 i aixi ho ha fet tambe pel 2020. Un principi rector basic de l'Estrategia Europea d'Ocupacio es el paradigma de l'activacio, segons el qual es tendeix a responsabilitzar a l'individu de la seva situacio respecte a l'ocupacio. L'activacio es, igualment, l'element que guia l'aplicacio de politiques actives d'ocupacio; la concrecio del qual es duu a terme al territori, a l'ambit local. L'ambit local es, precisament, on millor es pot delimitar l'objectiu de les politiques actives, l'adequacio entre l'oferta i la demanda de treball; tambe es on e poden satisfer millor les necessitats del teixit productiu, al mateix temps que s'aten a les caracteristiques i expectatives de les persones. Les politiques actives d'ocupacio locals, negociades i articulades pels agents socials presents al territori poden, aixi mateix, afavorir la cohesio social i defugir algun dels elements negatius que s'associen al paradigma de l'activacio. En aquest treball es presenten dos exemples concrets derivats de recerques especifiques sobre la tematica abordada, i on se subratlla la importancia de l'especificitat local en les actuacions sobre l'ocupacio i la seva llunyania de bona part de les premisses de l'activacio impulsada per l'Estrategia Europea d'Ocupacio.
Purpose:
Many Western welfare states have introduced early-return-to-work policies, in which getting sick-listed people back to work before they have fully recovered is presented as a rather unproblematic approach. This reflects a belief in the ability of employers and the labour market to solve sickness absence. Against this background, the aim of this study was to analyse return-to-work practice in local workplace contexts, in relation to Swedish early-return-to-work policy.
Methods:
Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 18 matched pairs of workers and managers. The material, comprising a total of 36 interviews, was analysed using qualitative content analysis.
Results:
Three main themes were identified: (1) intensive workplaces and work conditions (2) employer support-a function of worker value and (3) work attachment and resistance to job transition. The results reflected the intensity of modern working life, which challenged return-to-work processes. Managers had different approaches to workers' return-to-work, depending on how they valued the worker. While managers used the discourse of 'new opportunities' and 'healthy change' to describe the transition process (e.g. relocation, unemployment and retirement), workers regularly experienced transitions as difficult and unjust.
Conclusions:
In the context of early-return-to-work policy and the intensity of modern working life, a great deal of responsibility was placed on workers to be adaptable to workplace demands in order to be able to return and stay at work. Overall, this study illustrates an emerging social climate where sick-listed workers are positioned as active agents who must take responsibility for sick leave and return-to-work process.
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