1.
Ullberg, Susann, 1968-
(author)
Watermarks : Urban Flooding and Memoryscape in Argentina
2013
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic) abstract
The relationship between social experience and action in the context of recurrent disasters is often thought of in terms of adaptation. This study problematises this assumption from an anthropological perspective by analysing the memoryscape that mediates past experiences of disasters. The inquiry is based on translocal and transtemporal ethnographic fieldwork conducted in 2004-2011 in the flood-prone city of Santa Fe in Argentina. The study examines how past flooding is remembered by flood victims in the middle- and low-income districts and by activists of the protest movement that emerged in the wake of the 2003 flood. It deals with flood memory in the local bureaucracy, in local historiography, myths and popular culture. The analysis reveals that the Santafesinian flood memoryscape is dynamically configured by evocative, reminiscent and commemorative modes of remembering, which are expressed in multiple forms, ranging from memorials and rituals to bureaucratic documents, infrastructure and everyday practices. The study addresses the relationship between memory, morality and social inequality and discusses the implications for questions regarding vulnerability, resilience and adaptation.
2.
Eriksson Tinghög, Mimmi, 1973-
(author)
Mission Impossible? Universal Alcohol Prevention at Workplaces in Sweden
2013
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic) abstract
Since the mid 1990s, alcohol policy in Sweden has undergone major changes and the restrictive policy instruments have been weakened. Alternative and compensatory preventive measures have been sought and the workplace is repeatedly referred to as an important and appropriate arena for prevention. Universal methods, such as disseminating information and education programs, are seen as crucial in order for individuals to be able to make informed choices about their alcohol consumption.The overall purpose of this thesis is to analyze the prerequisites for and the possibilities and barriers associated with alcohol education programs at workplaces. The first paper investigates the general interest in alcohol prevention at workplaces where no interventions had been undertaken. The second paper is an effect study which investigates the effects of a short alcohol education program provided to those employed at a company in Stockholm. In the third paper, the effects of a day-long alcohol education program provided to all persons employed by a municipality are studied. The fourth paper is an interview study, in which the aim is to analyze how the participants in alcohol education programs view their participation and the content and legitimacy of the intervention.The findings suggest that interest in prevention at workplaces is low among employers. In addition, there are difficulties linked to implementation and evaluation, and in achieving and registering any substantial effects. The effect studies noted a significant increase in alcohol-related knowledge and that binge drinking decreased among those who drank the most. The employees found the education programs interesting and valuable but mostly for others, i.e. those who drink too much. Taken together, the studies suggest that it is not reasonable to believe that workplace-based prevention will become a common and effective measure or that it will compensate for the weakened alcohol policy in Sweden.
3.
Thalberg, Sara, 1974-
(author)
Students and Family Formation : Studies on educational enrolment and childbearing in Sweden
2013
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic) abstract
This thesis explores the impact of educational enrolment on family formation in Sweden. The aim is to identify factors that are important for students’ childbearing and to find potential explanations as to why so few students have children while enrolled in education. Three independent studies are carried out, two quantitative and one qualitative. Study I examines the associations between age, earnings, a student financial aid reform, and female students’ first, second and third birth risks. Study II takes a gender perspective and compares the influence of mothers’ and fathers’ enrolment and earnings on parental couples’ propensities to have a second or a third child. In both these studies the analyses are performed using longitudinal register data. Study III explores male and female students’ childbearing intentions, and the motivations behind them, through individual in-depth interviews with childless students. Several findings point towards the significance of economic factors. The results in Study I show that earnings have a clear impact on female students’ birth risks, and in Study III economic security is found to be an important motive behind the students’ childbearing intentions. However, the student financial aid reform investigated in Study I had no noticeable impact on students’ childbearing behaviour. The negative effect of educational enrolment on childbearing risks, as well as the significance of earnings and economic security, is clearly weakened by age. In addition to economic security, the interview accounts indicate that non-material aspects, such as the biological risks of postponement, knowing one’s future prospects and being content with life, are also important for the timing of childbearing. The implications of educational enrolment for family formation are also found to be largely dependent on gender, as in Study II mothers’ educational enrolment had a much stronger negative impact on couples’ continued childbearing than fathers’ enrolment. Further, compared to the males, the female respondents in Study III had much more knowledge about the parental leave system, and parental leave and their benefit level were also things they took into account to a much larger extent when discussing their childbearing intentions. The gender differences are likely associated with the Swedish earnings-related parental leave insurance and mothers still taking the largest part of the leave. The fact that both economic security and the biological risks associated with postponement are seen as crucial factors for timing of family formation implies that some students, particularly females above age 30, find themselves in a difficult situation.
4.
Torssander, Jenny, 1979-
(author)
Equality in Death? : How the Social Positions of Individuals and Families are Linked to Mortality
2013
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic) abstract
Socioeconomic positions of individuals are clearly associated with the chances of living a healthy long life. In four empirical studies based on Swedish population registers, two topics are examined in this thesis: The relationships between different indicators of social position and mortality, and the importance of family members’ socioeconomic resources for the survival of the individual.The overall conclusion from the separate studies is that no single individual socioeconomic factor gives a complete picture of mortality inequalities. Further, the socioeconomic resources of partners and adult children are important in addition to the individual ones. The specific results from each study include that:I education, social class, social status and income are, to various extent, independently associated with mortality risk. Education and social status are related to women’s mortality, and education, social class, and income to men’s mortality.II one partner’s social position is related to the other partner’s survival, also when individual socioeconomic factors are statistically controlled for. In particular, men’s mortality is linked to their wives’ education and women’s mortality to their husbands’ social class.III adult children’s education is related to their parents’ risk of dying, also when both parents’ socioeconomic resources are taken into consideration. Further, the association between the offspring’s level of education and parental mortality cannot be explained by characteristics that parents share with their siblings.IV children’s social class and income are related to parental mortality, but not as strongly as the education of the children. There is no relationship between a mother’s own education and breast cancer mortality, while mothers seem to have better chances of surviving breast cancer if they have well-educated children.
5.
Brandén, Maria, 1982-
(author)
Gendered Migration Patterns within a Sex Segregated Labor Market
2013
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic) abstract
When a couple moves, the woman is often placed at a disadvantage. Moves are more often motivated by men’s career advancement opportunities, and men tend to gain more economically from moving. In this thesis, these patterns are examined with an eye on the role of sex segregation on the labor market. Results from the four studies indicate that there exist gender differences in couples’ migration patterns in Sweden. These differences cannot be completely explained by occupational sex segregation or by traditional gender ideologies.I. Compared to men, women are more willing to move for the sake of their partner’s employment opportunities. Further, fathers move for the sake of their own career more often than mothers. Gender differences in these patterns are greater among individuals with gender traditional attitudes, but also exist in more egalitarian relationships.II. In a couple, the man’s educational attainment affects couples’ mobility more than the woman’s. This is because highly educated men’s occupations have more career advancement opportunities and larger differences in wages between regions, whereas women’s occupations have higher geographic ubiquity. Both partners’ occupational characteristics have an equal impact on the couple’s mobility.III. When a couple moves, the man benefits more financially than the woman. This differential cannot be wholly explained by occupational differences. Some of the lag in women’s earnings development can be accounted for by childbearing following a move. Occupations’ with greater geographic ubiquity correlate with more positive financial outcomes for both men and women following a move.IV. At the start of co-residence, it is more common that the woman moves to the man than vice versa, and women generally move longer distances than men. Age differentails between partners explain part of these migration differences. Furthermore, men’s migration propensities and distance moved are more affected by labor market ties than women’s.
6.
Hammare, Ulf, 1961-
(author)
Mellan löften om särart och krav på evidens : En studie av kunskap och kunskapssyn i socialt inriktade ideella, privata och offentliga organisationer
2013
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic) abstract
Between the Promise of Specificity and the Demand for Evidence – A study of knowledge and the approach to knowledge in socially oriented non-profit, private and public sector organizationsIn the social work field it is possible to identify two parallel processes in time. On the one hand a qualitative developmental process―even towards a form of standardization―where central concepts are academisation, professionalization, scientifically produced knowledge, expertise and evidence based methods. Simultaneously, there is a drive to create the conditions for increased diversity, where hopes are especially being pinned on the non-profit sector. In spite of representations and expectations concerning the non-profit sector and its so-called specificity, however, much of existing research lacks a comparative perspective, i.e., studies where non-profit organizations are related to comparable activities in the private and public sector.The aim of the study―with special focus on issues concerning evidence based knowledge in social work―is to compare and analyse whether and in that case how employee conceptions differ between the sectors, and whether and in what way non-profit employees and their activities can be said to fulfil the expectations of contributing to increased diversity. Data is from a questionnaire directed to about 1300 social work employees.The results show a greater interest in research and more marked efforts at professionalization in the public sector, while above all in the non-profit sector there was skepticism about science paired with reservations about work carried out in a professional way. In the non-profit, but also in the private sector, issues of ethics, views of humanity and values were paid greater attention. Also stressed here was the importance of creating relationships, the unique human encounter, genuine commitment, and human kindness. However, there was significant uniformity across all sectors in the use of methods, where three dominated: solution focused measures, network support/therapy, and psychosocial work.
7.
Jerre, Kristina, 1974-
(author)
The Public's Sense of Justice in Sweden - a Smorgasbord of Opinions
2013
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic) abstract
The public’s views on what constitute appropriate reactions to crime, have come to assume an increasingly central position in the crime policy rhetoric of western countries. In Sweden this manifests itself in recurrent referrals to the public’s sense of justice. Any clear definitions of what the public’s sense of justice is, how it is expressed and how it can be read are however absent from these referrals.In this thesis the use of referrals to the public’s sense of justice as a legitimizing ground for penal legislation is problematized from an empirical perspective. Paper I points out the substantial variation found in the public’s view on what constitutes appropriate sentences. According to Paper II society’s reactions to crime are expected to fulfill different, and often contradictory, objectives simultaneously. Paper III also points to the assumption that views on what constitutes appropriate sentences are based on deliberations where different dimensions of society’s reaction are weighed against each other.The public’s sense of justice, thus, consists of diverse, variable and complex opinions. Referrals to it as a legitimizing ground for changes in penal legislation becomes a matter of choice between whose and which opinion it is that should be emphasized. For this choice to be perceived as legitimate it should not be made without at the same time motivating it.If crime policy is to be both knowledge-based and fitted to the public’s sense of justice the public must be given the opportunity to develop an informed and well-grounded sense of justice. Especially since, compared to other political matters, crime policy and its consequences are something that only a small portion of the public comes into direct contact with. The suggestion is that the public criminal policy debate is framed so that it matches the complexity of the public’s sense of justice itself.
8.
Stranz, Anneli, 1971-
(author)
Omsorgsarbetets vardag och villkor i Sverige och Danmark : Ett feministiskt kritiskt perspektiv
2013
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic) abstract
The present study analyses the welfare state as employer by studying eldercare workers’ experiences of their work in Sweden and Denmark. The Nordic welfare states are often described as potentially women-friendly due to the availability of publicly provided services that enable women to combine paid work and caring responsibilities. Whereas this might be empowering for a large group of women, paid care workers are often neglected in the discussion. The theoretical point of departure is Nancy Fraser’s dualistic model of gender justice, which encompasses redistribution (of material resources) and recognition (in the form of social status).By utilising survey-data (NORDCARE) on Swedish (n=532) and Danish (n=732) eldercare workers, the study shows that care recipients have larger needs and working conditions are more arduous in Sweden. However, in both countries workers report deficiencies with regard to insufficient resources, such as lack of staff, limited opportunities for development and training, and lack of necessary equipment for lifting service users, of support from managers and of reasonable time for the tasks to be performed. The pressure at work makes the care workers feel inadequate in relation to quality of care they are able to offer.The differences in job strain between the countries turn out to be of little importance when the care workers’ experiences of bodily and mental fatigue are compared. The bodies of the care workers are their main working tool and thus the bearer of the working conditions. More than 60 per cent of the respondents state that they often are physically tired after the day's work, and two-fifths of the respondents have seriously considered leaving their job during the past year. In both countries, the experience of physical and mental fatigue and the number of sick days over the past year are important factors behind thoughts about quitting the job.Using a dualistic model of gender justice, where redistribution and recognition are theorised as overlapping analytical dimensions, the results are interpreted as continuous organisational shortcomings which make the care workers’ everyday work invisible, and in the long run imply a risk for their health.
9.
Turunen, Jani, 1977-
(author)
Stepfamily Dynamics in Sweden : Essays on family structure and children’s well-being
2013
Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic) abstract
This thesis investigates different aspects of family structure and children’s well-being in Sweden. Applying a child perspective, it analyzes children’s likelihood of stepfamily entry, their emotional well-being in different family forms and educational outcomes in families with complex sibling structures. Analyses are performed using data from nationally representative surveys of both parents and children as well as from administrative registers.The results do not show any socioeconomic differences in the process of family reconstitution, although children of parents with low educational attainment are more likely to be in the risk pool for stepfamily formation. There are however differences by gender, with girls having higher likelihood of stepfamily entry than boys, especially in the younger ages. Children are also more likely to experience a stepfamily formation on the paternal side, thus gaining a stepmother. Gender differences can also be found in the association between family type and emotional as well as educational well-being, with girls showing slightly more adverse outcomes than boys. Children of both sexes do however show lower well-being and school outcomes in post-separation family types than in original two-parent families.Like previous international stepfamily literature the results show that Swedish children in stepfamilies and blended families experience adverse emotional and educational outcomes but that the differences are generally small. The main contrast to previous, mostly American, studies are the lack of socioeconomic differences in stepfamily formation and that adverse emotional outcomes in single parent families as well as stepfamilies seem to be mainly explained by differences in parenting and the parent-child relationship rather than economic deprivation.
