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| 2. |
- Svallfors, Stefan, 1961-
(författare)
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Class, attitudes and the Welfare State : Sweden in comparative perspective
- 2004
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Ingår i: Social Policy & Administration. - : Wiley. - 0144-5596 .- 1467-9515. ; 38:2, s. 119-138
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- One of the most important arenas for contemporary class politics is the welfare state. In this article, attitudes towards welfare policies among different classes in Sweden are compared with other Western countries and over time. In the first part of the article, attitudes towards state intervention among different classes are compared across four Western countries: Sweden, Germany, Britain and the USA. The data come from the 1996 survey on "The Role of Government" conducted within the International Social Survey Programme. In the second part of the article, more detailed national data sets are used in order to track developments within Sweden from the early 1980s until 2002. Attitudes towards welfare spending, financing of welfare policies and service delivery are used to track developments of class differences in attitudes over time. It is concluded (a) that class differences are particularly large in Sweden, and (b) that changes over time indicate stability in overall class differences, combined with changes in attitudes among non-manual employees. The implications of the results for recent arguments about the restructuring of class relations and the impact of welfare policies on stratification are discussed.
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| 3. |
- Blomqvist, Paula
(författare)
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The Choice Revolution : Privatization of Swedish Social Services in the 1990s
- 2004
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Ingår i: Social Policy & Administration. - : Wiley. - 0144-5596 .- 1467-9515. ; 38:2, s. 171-193
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- During the 1990s, the Swedish welfare state was declared by some to be in a “crisis”, due to both financial strain and loss of political support. Others have argued that the spending cuts and reforms undertaken during this period did slow down the previous increase in social spending, but left the system basically intact. The main argument put forward in this article is that the Swedish welfare state has been and is still undergoing a transforming process whereby it risks losing one of its main characteristics, namely the belief in and institutional support for social egalitarianism. During the 1990s, the public welfare service sector opened up to competing private actors. As a result, the share of private provision grew, both within the health-care and primary education systems as well as within social service provision. This resulted in a socially segregating dynamic, prompted by the introduction of “consumer choice”. As will be shown in the article, the gradual privatization and market-orientation of the welfare services undermine previous Swedish notions of a “people's home”, where uniform, high-quality services are provided by the state to all citizens, regardless of income, social background or cultural orientation.
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| 6. |
- Jegermalm, Magnus, et al.
(författare)
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Patterns of informal help- and caregiving in Sweden: A Thirteen-year perspective
- 2009
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Ingår i: Social Policy and Administration. - : Wiley. - 0144-5596 .- 1467-9515. ; 43:7, s. 681-701
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article analyses informal help and caregiving in Sweden with a focus on the scope and trends of change over time. The discussion is based on the results of three national surveys and of one survey conducted in the county of Stockholm. The results indicated that informal help and caregiving was common throughout the period under study. In the 1990s, the figures were fairly stable, while from the late 1990s to 2005 there seems to have been a dramatic increase in the prevalence of such support. Two interpretative perspectives are used to discuss this pattern. One locates its point of departure in recent welfare state changes and in the substitution argument, according to which cuts in welfare services put more pressure on people to provide informal help and care. The second perspective relates to the present debate on civil society and to its possible role in contemporary society. According to the civil society perspective, an increase in the prevalence of informal help and caregiving might be interpreted as an expression of growing civic involvement 'in its own right', without a straightforward and simple relationship to changes in the welfare state. It is argued in the article that the two frames of interpretation should not be viewed as mutually exclusive, but rather that they represent two partly complementary approaches to the understanding of the complex dynamics of unpaid work in contemporary Swedish society.
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| 7. |
- Jegermalm, Magnus
(författare)
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Support for Carers of Older People : the Roles of the Public and Voluntary Sectors in Sweden
- 2003
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Ingår i: Social Policy & Administration. - : Wiley. - 0144-5596 .- 1467-9515. ; 37:7, s. 756-771
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This study examines the support services offered to informal caregivers, whether directly or indirectly, in Sweden over the period of a special investment initiative between 1999 and 2001. Data were collected in a Swedish county using two separate mail questionnaires in 1999 and 2001. The first questionnaire was addressed to each municipality in the region. The second questionnaire was sent to a random sample of voluntary organizations in the area. The findings showed that only the municipalities provided direct forms of relief service, day care and financial support. The voluntary organizations’ support for carers focused on support groups and training as well as services for older care users themselves. There was a significant increase between 1999 and 2001 in the number of municipalities providing information material and training for carers and using professional caregiver consultants. On the one hand, the Swedish public social care system appears to be following the international pattern in paying more attention to informal caregivers and investing in support services for them. On the other hand the findings did not show any growth in support provided by the voluntary organizations. Here Swedish welfare is dissimilar to other European countries, where it is increasingly common for voluntary organizations to play an important role as providers of support for carers.
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| 8. |
- Saxonberg, Steven
(författare)
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Freedom of Choice through the Promotion of Gender Equality
- 2009
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Ingår i: Social Policy & Administration. - : Wiley. - 0144-5596 .- 1467-9515. ; 43:6, s. 666-679
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article argues that policies that promote gender equality actually also increase freedom of choice. Thus, despite the neo-liberal criticism that welfare policies limit choices and privatization and market solutions increase freedom of choice, this article concludes that market-liberal welfare regimes offer less choice than the Nordic type of social-democratic welfare regimes, which have openly striven to promote gender equality. They do so by making it easier for mothers to choose to work (by making day care available and making it easier for fathers to stay at home with children) and by giving fathers the ability to choose to spend more time with children. However, within the realm of such policies, it is still possible to offer more or less freedom of choice, for example, by making parental leaves either extremely flexible or rigid in how they are utilized. Interestingly, it turns out that, in the real world, policies that promote gender equality even offer greater freedom of choice for the group of women considered to be 'family oriented' as well as for lesbian and homosexual couples.
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| 9. |
- Saxonberg, Steven, et al.
(författare)
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Neo-liberalism by Decay? : The Evolution of the Czech Welfare State
- 2009
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Ingår i: Social Policy & Administration. - : Wiley. - 0144-5596 .- 1467-9515. ; 43:2, s. 186-203
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this article we analyse the evolution of the Czech welfare state and we examine the factors explaining its path. We show that although the Czech welfare regime exhibits a 'mixed profile' that includes conservative and universalist elements, it is increasingly moving in a more liberal, residualist direction - not because of conscious steps but rather through decay. Governments have often zig-zagged in their policies and resorted to symbolic reforms at times rather than implementing ideologically based, consistent policies. We argue that historical and sociological institutionalism combined with a social-capital approach can explain this decay better than the more common arguments about economic pressures combined with ideological hegemony or the protest-avoidance strategy. In particular, the social capital approach adds to our institutional framework by explaining why cutbacks in welfare programmes have not met much opposition, even though public opinion surveys consistently show support for more generous welfare policies, and why policies have deviated so much from political rhetoric.
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| 10. |
- Svallfors, Stefan, 1961-
(författare)
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A bedrock of support? Trends in welfare state attitudes in Sweden, 1981–2010
- 2011
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Ingår i: Social Policy & Administration. - : Wiley-Blackwell. - 0144-5596 .- 1467-9515. ; 45:7, s. 806-825
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article reports findings about Swedes' attitudes towards the welfare state from 1981 to 2010, building on data from the Swedish Welfare State Surveys. Attitudes towards social spending, willingness to pay taxes, attitudes towards collective financing and public organization, suspicion about welfare abuse, and trust in the task performance of the welfare state are tracked. Overall, there is a large degree of stability in attitudes, and where change is registered, it tends to go in the direction of increasing support. More people state their willingness to pay higher taxes for welfare policy purposes; more people want collective financing of welfare policies; and fewer people perceive extensive welfare abuse in 2010 than was the case in previous surveys. Class patterns change so that the salaried and the self-employed become more similar to workers in their attitudes. Hence, the unprecedented election loss of the Swedish Social Democrats in 2010, and the rise of the Moderates (conservatives) as the dominant party cannot be explained by changing attitudes towards the welfare state. Nor can any corrosive effects from increased marketization of the Swedish welfare state on public support for welfare policies be detected.
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