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- Abbasian, Saeid, 1961-
(författare)
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Integration på egen hand : En studie av invandrade kvinnoföretagare i Sverige
- 2003
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The principal aim of this thesis is to discover and analyse the motives that make immigrant women start their own businesses in Sweden and to investigate whether this is a way to achieve integration in working life. The empirical material consists of two types of interviews. One type consisted of interviews with five experts on labour market issues, and the other of interviews with 16 female entrepreneurs of Iranian, Chilean and Turkish origin having their own business in the Greater Stockholm region. Results from the first set of interviews indicate that female immigrants who independently start their enterprise rely mainly on their own resources of power and abilities. They are either women with class resources such as higher educations, previous work experience, language abilities and economic savings, or young women with certificates from high schools or universities. The social environment where they grew up, the gender structure and gender roles in the family before and after immigration and time of residence in Sweden also influence the extent to which women immigrants can act independently. According to the experience of the experts, the motives for starting their business are either different structural reasons, e.g. unemployment, lack of suitable or well-paying jobs, lay-offs etc, or personal reasons such as having a meaningful occupation, to support the family, to earn money of their own, to be independent from men and strive for a better standard of living etc. Results from the second set of interviews indicate that the most important resource these women have used when establishing their businesses is class resources such as education and adequate training, different types of work experiences, human capital and in addition to this economic savings. For many of the women in this sample different structural reasons, like unemployment, lack of good job opportunities, discrimination on work places, merge with personal reasons such as strivings to achieve independence, being one’s own boss, to realize one’s plans and ambitions, when starting their business. Independent entrepreneurship is a good way for immigrant women to be integrated in working life especially if they start within certain branches. These are branches in which the women have appropriate university education or vocational training, previous work experience or which correspond to their personal interests. In addition immigrant women become more integrated if an education received abroad is treated as equivalent to the parallel Swedish education or degree. A further factor promoting integration is if they can fully exploit their capacities when developing their own businesses. These conditions help them to feel much more satisfaction in working life as women identify themselves with their actual profession and feel that they have found the “right place” for themselves in the society.
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| 2. |
- Carlsson, Carl Henrik, 1954-
(författare)
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Medborgarskap och diskriminering : Östjudar och andra invandrare i Sverige 1860–1920
- 2004
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The purpose of this thesis is to study whether discrimination arose in connection with applications for naturalisation in Sweden between 1860 and 1920.The number of naturalisation applications during the period studied was 11,242, of which 1,774 (16%) were from Eastern Jews, here defined as Jewish subjects of the Russian Tsar, and from the states that emerged after the fall of the Russian Empire. The outcome in each case has been established and where an application was denied (some 3,000 cases), I attempted to identify the main reason using the records appended to the case, sorting them into five main groups. A similar study was conducted for foreigners’ applications for freedom to trade (slightly more than 3,000 cases).Only 46% of naturalisation applications by Eastern Jews were approved, against almost 90% by ‘non Eastern Jews’ (viz. all other categories). The difference did not stem from concealed formal factors since it only increased once the analysis no longer included rejections because formal requirements had not been met. It is noticeable that a large number of Eastern Jews were turned down despite there being no specific complaint against them as individuals. No other category (including ‘Western Jews’, Finns, Catholics, Slavs, Italians and other categories of ‘strangers’) were discriminated against.The thesis also analyses the considerable variation over time. The question of the level on which decisions were actually taken is also addressed. It appears that the government was far more restrictive than the regional and local authorities. The role of the Jewish community of Stockholm is studied, so is the problem for many Eastern Jews of proving they were no longer the subjects of a foreign power.‘Eastern Jew phobia’ did not stop at attitudes; it was a discourse that was the main cause of discrimination. The Eastern Jews suffered any number of handicaps not only for being Jews but for being from the ‘East’. Worse, they belonged to an ethnic group associated with peddling, an occupation despised by the ruling elite.
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| 3. |
- Jörgensen, Hans, 1961-
(författare)
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Continuity or not? : Family farming and agricultural transformation in 20th century Estonia
- 2004
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This doctoral thesis explores the agrarian development in 20th Estonia and the role of family farming during three major agricultural transformations. It consists of four papers and an introductory chapter for which the common departure are the situation appearing in the Estonian farming landscape after the regained independence in 1991. The first three studies analyse comparative aspects on Estonia's interwar experiences with focus on land reform, agricultural co-operation, and agricultural export development. The fourth study focuses on the role of private plots during the Soviet period and the conversion of these into subsistence holdings after 1991. By merging the perspectives in these papers, the introductory chapter explores the impacts and legacies of previous transformations on the post-Soviet agricultural transformation up to 2004. The thesis specifically analyses the long-term effects of perceptions of markets and the role of agricultural production, changes in the agrarian property relations, organisation of agricultural production and co-operation. In analytical terms, this is discussed from the perspectives of continuity and discontinuity. Besides the several societal changes affecting the agrarian property relations in 20th century Estonia, the radical and decisive shifts have also affected markets, trade and economic integration. Since the end of the First World War, Estonia has been quickly thrown between different economic-political systems and legal environments. From the perspective of the small state’s dependence on trade and reliance on a few markets, the upheavals in the early 1920s, after World War II, and not least the fall of the Soviet Union, Estonia’s long-term economic development has been significantly affected. In this context the role of agriculture has changed. Most important, however, this dissertation shows how the idea of small-scale family farming survived throughout the planned economic period and became an indispensable production unit, even though it turned out to be a myth as soon as the Soviet system was dissolved and the exposure to international competition began after 1991.
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| 4. |
- Svensson, Rebecca, 1963-
(författare)
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När järnarbetare hanterar spaden och målaren knackar makadam : Om arbetslöshetspolitik i en arbetarstyrd kommun, Västerås, under 1920-talets krisår
- 2004
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In this dissertation local employment policy under the 1920s has been examined with regard to, among other, the following questions: Who had the power over the local unemployment policy? Did a town governed by the Social Democrats try to transform permanent employment into relief work? The dissertation is about Västerås, which in the 1920s was one of the larger cities in Sweden. The labour market was dominated by two large manufacturing companies. The 1920 crisis struck Västerås hard, and periodically the unemployment rate was the highest in Sweden. Since 1919, the Social Democrats together with the Left Socialist were in a majority position within the local government, and furthermore, the trade unions were well-organised. There was also a relatively strong Association for the Unemployed. This association, together with The Joint Trade Union Association, acted as pressure groups on the local government. In Västerås the most important political figures were to be found within a very limited group of decision-makers, who held positions of trust in the town Finance Department, in the Social Democratic city council group and in the Unemployment Committee. Most were members of at least two of these bodies at the same time. The politicians co-operated across party dividing lines to keep the town district’s expenses for measures against unemployment as low as possible. Therefore priority was given to measures that would give State subsidies (especially relief work), but also to measures such as municipal work that was not entitled to State subsidies, but that kept wage costs down.
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