| 1. |
- Brydsten, Anna, 1984-
(författare)
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Yesterday once more? Unemployment and health inequalities across the life course in northern Sweden
- 2017
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- AbstractBackground. It is relatively well established in previous research that unemployment has direct health consequences in terms of mental and physical ill health. Recently, knowledge has emerged indicating that unemployment can lead to economic consequences that remain long after re-establishment in the labour market. However, few empirical studies have been able to apply a life course perspective asking whether there are also long-term health consequences of unemployment, and, when and in which context unemployment may affect the individual health status across the life course. The aim of this thesis was to analyse the relationship between unemployment and illness across the life course, and how it relates to individual and structural factors in the geographical setting of northern Sweden. In particular, three main areas have been explored: youth unemployment and illness in adulthood (Paper I and Paper II), contextual unemployment of national unemployment rate and neighbourhood unemployment (Paper II and Paper III) and lastly, social determinants of health inequality between employment statuses (Paper IV).Methods. This thesis is positioned in Sweden between the early 1980s and the mid-2010s, following two comparable cohorts sampled from northern Sweden (26 and 19 years follow-up time respectively from youth to midlife) and a cross-sectional sample from 2014 of the four northernmost counties in Sweden. The two longitudinal cohorts comprised the Northern Swedish Cohort and the Younger Northern Swedish Cohort, consisting of all pupils in the 9th grade of compulsory school in Luleå municipality in 1981 and 1989. The participants responded to an extensive questionnaire on socioeconomic factors, work and health, in 5 and 2 waves respectively of data collections. Neighbourhood register data from Statistics Sweden was also collected for all participants in the Northern Sweden Cohort. At the latest data collection, 94.3% (n=1010) participated in the Northern Sweden Cohort and 85.6% (n=686) in the Younger Northern Sweden Cohort. The cross-sectional study Health on Equal Terms is a national study, administered by the Public Health Agency together with Statistics Sweden and county councils with the aim of mapping public health and living conditions in the country over time. In this thesis, material from 2014 has been used for northern Sweden with a response rate of around 50% (effective sample n=12769). The statistical analyses used were linear regression, multilevel analysis and difference-in-difference analysis to estimate the concurrent and long-term health consequences of unemployment, and a decomposition analysis to disentangle the inequality in health between different labour market positions. The health outcomes in focus were functional somatic symptoms (the occurrence of relatively common physical illnesses such as head, muscle and stomach ache, insomnia and palpitation) and psychological distress.Results. Among men only, as little as one month of youth unemployment was related to increased levels of functional somatic symptoms in midlife, regardless of previous ill health or unemployment later in life, although only during relatively low national unemployment (pre-recession) when comparing with youth unemployment during high national unemployment (recession). This was explained by the health promoting effect of more time spent in higher education during the recession period. Furthermore, the health impact of neighbourhood unemployment highlights the importance of the contextual setting for individuals’ health both across the life course and at specific periods of life. Lastly, employment-related mental health inequalities exist for both men and women in all life phases (youth, adulthood and midlife). Economic and social deprivation related to unemployment and illness varied across different phases in life and across genders.Conclusion. The key findings of this thesis paint a rather pessimistic vision of the future: one’s own and others’ unemployment may cause not only ill health today but also ill health later in life. Importantly, the responsibility of unemployment and the associated ill health should not be placed on the already marginalised individuals and communities. Instead, the responsibility should be directed towards the structural aspects of society and the political choices that shape these. In other words, health inequality manifested by the position in the labour market is socially produced, unfair and changeable through political decisions. The results of this study therefore cannot contribute to any simple or concrete solutions to the concurrent or long-term health consequences of individual or contextual unemployment, as the solution is beyond the areas of responsibility and abilities of research. However, if there are long-term health consequences of one’s own and other people’s unemployment, labour market and public health policies should be initiated from a young age and continue throughout the life course to reduce individual suffering and future costs of social insurance, sick-leave and unemployment benefits.
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| 2. |
- Forsman, Hilma, 1985-
(författare)
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Addressing poor educational outcomes among children with out-of-home care experience : Studies on impact, pathways, and interventions
- 2019
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Children with out-of-home care (OHC; foster family/residential care) experience is a high-risk group for future adverse outcomes. With an ambition of supporting the design of effective preventive child welfare measures targeting children in OHC, the overall aim of this thesis is to examine education as a possible intervention path for improving their development and overall life chances.The thesis consists of four interrelated empirical studies that address different aspects of poor educational outcomes among children with OHC experience by means of analyses of longitudinal survey and register data, and evaluations of two interventions aimed at improving their basic academic skills.Study I examined the hypothesized causal effect of poor school performance on adverse outcomes in young adulthood among children with OHC experience. The results showed that poor school performance has an impact on later psychosocial problems net of observed and unobserved factors, suggesting that the estimated effects allow for causal interpretations.Study II explored educational outcomes at different stages in the educational career, and pathways to varied educational outcomes for children with OHC experience and their peers. The results showed that the OHC group had lower educational outcomes across the life course. Yet, by large, their educational pathways did not differ significantly from their peers – cognitive ability and previous school performance had the largest associations with the outcomes in both groups. However, the influence of these factors were weaker in the OHC group whilst the influence of the birth family’s attitude towards higher education was stronger.Study III aimed at furthering our understanding of the book-gifting program the Letterbox Club’s potential impact on foster family children’s reading skills. The results showed that participation in the program was associated with small improvements. In general, the program was well received by children and carers, and could result in increased reading. The study furthermore suggested that promotion of carer involvement may improve its potential impact.Study IV explored the process of conducting a structured paired reading intervention involving foster family children and their carers. Findings showed that it is possible to engage carers in interventions targeting the education of children in OHC, but that this is no automatic process – carers need a rationale for getting involved, and support in delivering the intervention.In sum, this thesis shows that improving the educational outcomes of children in OHC may be a viable intervention path in supporting their life course development, a path that historically has been overlooked. The thesis furthermore shows examples of promising interventions which may improve the basic academic skills of children in OHC. The results also point out that the child welfare system should provide early and continuous educational support, and highlight the importance of addressing adults’ attitudes, expectations, and involvement in these children’s education.
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| 3. |
- Kahlmeter, Anna, 1981-
(författare)
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Stressful life events and risks for social exclusion in the youth-to-adulthood transition : Findings from Swedish longitudinal data
- 2022
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Family background and childhood conditions have long held a special position in the academic literature as an explanation for young people’s life chances. Less attention has been paid to circumstances and events on the cusp of adulthood. This thesis aims to improve the understanding of how stressful life events are associated with future trajectories of education and labour market attachment. The thesis comprises three empirical studies, all of which draw on longitudinal micro data from Swedish administrative registers.Study I examines different types of housing instability events, among students in upper secondary school still in the parental nest, focusing on non-forced moves as well as eviction threats and forced relocations. It assesses the association between housing instability and educational attainment, operationalized as graduation from upper secondary school. The results suggest that the instability and stress following forced relocations, repeated relocations and long-distance relocations are of particular significance for understanding the link between housing instability and educational outcomes. Single short-distance relocations seem to have little impact on educational success. Findings also indicate that eviction threats, where a forced relocation was arrested, still may have implications for educational attainment. However, sensitivity tests showed that these estimates were not robust to confounding. Averting an eviction, even at this late stage of housing instability, may thus protect against early school leaving. Further research is however needed.Study II follows young individuals from the time of their residential emancipation and maps their labour market establishment trajectories until their mid-thirties, by means of sequence analysis. It then investigates to what extent the experience of economic hardship, measured as different degrees of social assistance receipt, is associated with adverse labour market trajectories. The results indicate that, for a majority of social assistance recipients, the system works as intended, and they transition to education or work rather swiftly, particularly if economic hardship is brief. Extensive hardship, however, is associated with elevated risks of long-term labour market exclusion that persists well into adulthood.Study III draws on register data for 12 complete successive cohorts and examines the link between severe violent victimization in young adulthood and labour market exclusion at ages 25 and 30. It puts particular emphasis on the moderating role of offending and gender. The findings suggest that victimized women are a particularly disadvantaged group, having faced a range of social and financial strain. Female victims of violent crime also face elevated risks of labour market exclusion, both in the short- and the long-term, and regardless of criminal offending. For men, however, violent offending moderates the association. While violent victimization adds to the risk of labour market exclusion for male violent offenders, male non-offenders display no elevated risks.Taken together, the thesis demonstrates that the experience of these life events in the transition from youth to adulthood place young individuals at heightened risk of educational shortfall and exclusion from the labour market, both in the immediate aftermath and later in life. Implications of the findings are that a long-term perspective is warranted in considerations of both preventive and reactive measures.
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| 4. |
- Arvidsson, Jessica, 1982-
(författare)
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Sysselsättning och social rättvisa : En nationell registerstudie om 12 269 unga vuxna med intellektuell funktionsnedsättning
- 2016
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Kunskapen om övergången mellan gymnasiesärskola och arbetsliv för unga vuxna med intellektuell funktionsnedsättning är begränsad. Varken välfärds- eller forskarsamhället har kunskap om vilken typ av sysselsättning som före detta elever i den svenska gymnasieskolan har efter skoltiden.Huvudsyftet med denna sammanläggningsavhandling är tredelat: att (a) öka kunskapen om vilka typer av sysselsättning som personer med intellektuell funktionsnedsättning har efter avslutad gymnasiesärskola, att (b) åskådliggöra mönster och faktorer (kön, förfluten tid sedan examen, utbildningsprogram, boendekommun samt föräldrarnas födelseland och utbildningsnivå) som kan bidra till skillnader vad gäller typ av sysselsättning, samt att (c) skapa ett nationellt register som möjliggör kvantitativa analyser, longitudinella studier och utgör underlag för kvalitativa fördjupande studier av efter(sär)gymnasial sysselsättning. Avhandlingen innehåller fyra artiklar och en ramberättelse.Ett nationellt register, Halmstad University Register on Pupils with Intellectual Disability (HURPID) skapades utifrån information i slutbetygen från 12 269 tidigare elever i gymnasiesärskolan. Slutbetyg är allmänna handlingar som begärdes från kommunerna. HURPID samkördes med två nationella register: Longitudinell Integrationsdatabas för Sjukförsäkrings- och Arbetsmarknadsstudier (LISA) och LSS-registret som innehåller information om insatser som beviljats enligt lag (1993:387) om stöd och service till vissa funktionshindrade. Avhandlingen bygger på tvärsnittsstudier vilka ger en ögonblicksbild av den efter(sär)gymnasiala sysselsättningen under 2011 bland de personer som gått ut mellan 2001-2011. Frekvensanalyser användes för att beskriva studiepopulationens karaktäristika. Korstabeller och Pearson´s chi2-test användes för att analysera skillnader avseende typ av sysselsättning mellan olika grupper i studiepopulationen. Sambandet mellan avhandlingens beroende och oberoende variabler undersöktes med bivariata och multivariata logistiska regressionsanalyser.Analyserna visar att den största andelen (47%) av de unga har sin sysselsättning inom daglig verksamhet, 22,4% har ett förvärvsarbete, de flesta med någon form av lönesubvention; och 6,6% studerar. En betydande andel (24%) betecknas vara "någon annanstans" (inte i någon av de andra tre sysselsättningstyperna). Andelen unga vuxna i daglig verksamhet är lägre än förväntat och andelen som har ett förvärvsarbete är högre än förväntat. En oväntat stor andel tillhör kategorin "någon annanstans" och har inte daglig verksamhet, inte ett förvärvsarabete och studerar inte.Kön, typ av utbildningsprogram, hur lång tid som förflutit sedan examen, boendekommun och föräldrarnas utbildningsnivå samt geografiska härkomst är alla faktorer som påverkar vilken typ av sysselsättning som unga vuxna med intellektuell funktionsnedsättning har. Män som har gått ett nationellt program i gymnasiesärskolan och som tog examen mellan 2001-2006 är de som har störst sannolikhet för att ha ett förvärvsarbete. Personernas boendekommun har en viss oberoende effekt på typ av efter(sär)gymnasial sysselsättning och den totalt sett låga andelen flyttar i populationen antas förstärka betydelsen av vilken kommun de bor i. Unga vars föräldrar är lågutbildade har mer sannolikt ett förvärvsarbete eller tillhör kategorin "någon annanstans". De vars föräldrar är högutbildade har mer sannolikt en sysselsättning inom daglig verksamhet eller studerar (exempelvis på Komvux eller folkhögskola). De unga vars föräldrar är födda i ett utom-europeiskt land är med större sannolikhet studerande eller personer som tillhör kategorin "någon annanstans".Avhandlingens huvudresultat diskuteras i förhållande till ett teoretiskt ramverk om social rättvisa. Betydelsen av samhällets ansvar att främja alla medborgares möjlighet att vara och göra vad de har anledning att värdesätta betonas. Ett samhälle som främjar social rättvisa måste stödja människors möjligheter att oavsett funktionsförmåga kunna välja sysselsättning. Såväl den offentliga som den privata sektorn behöver tydligare betrakta personer med intellektuell funktionsnedsättning som en viktig resurs i samhället och på arbetsmarknaden; se dem som personer med förmågor som riskerar att döljas bakom kategorier, fördomar och föråldrade strukturer.
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| 5. |
- Brännlund, Annica, 1963-
(författare)
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Non-market outcomes of education : the long-term impact of education on individuals' social participation and health in Sweden
- 2014
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In research, it is typical to analyse and discuss the utility of education in economic terms—specifically the market value of a particular degree or the financial returns associated with additional years in higher education. However, education may also generate outcomes that belong to the non-market sphere, such as open-mindedness, societal cohesion, community involvement, better health, and gender equality; yet these outcomes have received little scholarly attention. The main objective of this thesis, therefore, is to investigate the relationship between education and four non-market outcomes: agency, voice, health behaviour and psychological distress. By utilizing two longitudinal data sets, the Swedish Survey of Living Conditions and the Northern Swedish Cohort, it is possible to assess the long-term effects of education on each of these four non-market outcomes.Results clearly demonstrate that education has a critical impact on each of the outcomes of interest. Having a higher education—and in particular a university degree–enhances individuals’ agency and voice, reduces psychological distress, and improves individuals’ health behaviour. Further, results show that different academic subjects generate field-specific resources. In contrast to a market perspective, where the value of the specific field of study is assessed only in economic terms, results indicate that fields that are commonly viewed as having low market value may actually yield non-economic rewards that benefit individuals in critically important ways.Analyses also show that individual and social factors shape the extent to which education leads to positive outcomes. In terms of agency and voice, results indicate that education can compensate for social differences. Among those with a working class background, earning a university degree contributes to increasing levels of agency and voice, while no significant effects of education exist for those with a white-collar background. Results also demonstrate that the impact of education on psychological well-being differs for men and women. For men, labour market resources (i.e., being employed) was important for reducing psychological distress, while for women social resources (i.e., having a partner) was more important.Due to its use of high quality, longitudinal data, this thesis makes a significant contribution to the scholarly literature and to what we know about the impact of education attainment. A limitation of cross-sectional analyses is that it is difficult to separate causal effects from selection effects. By adopting a longitudinal approach, it is possible to control for earlier (baseline) circumstances and therefore assess the causal impact of education on individual outcomes. This strategy yields robust results that make clear the long-term effects of educational attainment on individuals.
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| 6. |
- Högberg, Björn, 1988-
(författare)
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Vulnerability and inequalities in health and wellbeing : the role of social policy
- 2019
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The aim of this thesis is to investigate the moderating role of social policies for the association between vulnerable social positions and health and wellbeing. Vulnerable social positions are identified in relation to age-related transition points in to or out of the labour market. Specifically, the focal groups are young adults, on the route to establish themselves in the labour market, and older persons, having just left the labour market, and inequalities by labour market status, class, or gender within these age groups. The thesis moreover aims to contribute to the theoretical development of the comparative health literature, by developing and implementing a theoretical framework for analyzing the role of social policy for the health and wellbeing of vulnerable groups.Data and methods: The aim is addressed through a cross-country comparative approach, by fitting multilevel regression models on harmonized individual level data from the European Social Survey. Specifically, cross-level interactions between social position and social policies are estimated, with self-reported general health and psychological wellbeing as outcomes. The focal social policies are pension systems and elderly care policies, as well as education policies.Results and conclusions: Overall, the empirical results showed that public investment in, and public organization of, elderly care was associated with smaller health inequalities by both social class and gender, and that redistributive minimum pensions were associated with smaller inequalities by social class, while more status-maintaining standard pensions were associated with larger gender-based inequalities. Regarding the role of education policies, the analyses showed that inclusive policies – specifically low degree of tracking, generous second chance opportunities, low out-of-pocket costs for, and a larger supply of, education – were associated with smaller inequalities by both social background and employment status. The overall conclusion of the thesis is that redistributive social policies, which distribute essential resources to vulnerable groups, have the potential to reduce inequalities in health and wellbeing between vulnerable and more advantaged groups.
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| 7. |
- Bortes, Cristian, 1984-
(författare)
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Growing up with poor health and managing school : Studies on ill health and young people's educational achievements
- 2022
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Aim and objectives: The overall aim of this thesis was to empirically investigate consequences of poor health for children’s educational outcomes in Sweden. A central tenet is that health problems impact not only the afflicted individual but also people in their social and emotional proximity, in particular immediate family members. More specific objectives were to study: 1. The relationship between multiple clinically diagnosed mental disorders and children’s educational achievements in Sweden. 2. The bidirectional relationship between mental health problems and academic performance among Swedish adolescents, as well as heterogeneous patterns associated with gender and socioeconomic groups. 3. The effects of parental somatic and psychiatric health problems on the probability of youths leaving upper secondary education before completion in Sweden and potential gender differences in these effects. 4. The relationship between having a sibling with health problems and a healthy sibling’s school grades in the final year of compulsory education in Sweden and how socioeconomic background modifies this relationship.Theoretical framework: Key concepts applied in the thesis are health and illness. The ability to perform things in life, the ability to act, determines whether a person is healthy or ill. Illness (or poor health, treated as a synonymous term) entails a reduced ability to act in relation to one’s life situation and its demands. Family is viewed from a systems theory perspective. Poor health of a parent reduces his or her ability to maintain regular roles, which may require reorganisation of the family system. Siblings’ health problems can affect other children in the family by inducing concerns and occupying and diverting parents’ time and attention. All of this could be psychosocially stressful in many ways, not least for children in the family and their ability in relation to schooling.Data and methods: The research objectives were addressed by utilising social and medical microdata from Swedish administrative registers covering the entire population in Sweden. Data pertaining to different populations, collectively covering the period from 1987 to 2017, were used in four studies designated Studies I–IV. Educational achievement was measured in terms of teacher-assigned school grades awarded by the end of compulsory school and in upper secondary school, as well as completion (or non-completion) of an upper secondary education. Poor health was measured through data on outpatient visits to specialist healthcare facilities, psychotropic drug prescriptions and admissions/discharges from Swedish hospitals. Socioeconomic background was measured by parental level of education. The data were analysed by fitting linear and logistic regression models as well as cross-lagged path models.Results and conclusions: Empirical results of Study I showed that specific diagnosed mental disorders have varying, largely disadvantageous, associations with educational achievements of students that differ between boys and girls. Documentation of this in Sweden adds to evidence that mental disorders have a negative overall association with educational achievement, despite substantial variation in support and educational systems across countries. The results of Study II provided no support for a bidirectional relationship between mental health and academic performance of students aged 15-16 to 18-19 years. However, they support a unidirectional relationship, as a negative relationship was found between school grades at graduation from compulsory school and rates of subsequent psychotropic medication use in upper secondary school. The relationship was equal in size for both boys and girls but mainly among adolescents with the highest educated parents.Study III showed that having a mother or a father with psychiatric, but not somatic, illness that necessitated hospitalisation after completing compulsory schooling was associated with an increased probability of leaving upper secondary school before completion. No significant gender-based differences in this were found. Results presented in Study IV showed that having one or more siblings with health problems that necessitated recurrent hospitalisations was associated with lower grades. Children with ill siblings were also less likely to be eligible for an upper secondary education compared to children whose siblings did not have poor health. Socioeconomic background did not affect this educational disadvantage.Results presented in this thesis clearly corroborate the importance of health for children’s education. Children’s educational achievements at the end of compulsory school are inversely related to mental health problems in their adolescence. Thus, academic competence may have positive effects on certain aspects of young people’s mental health, which underscores the importance of promoting opportunities for youth to do as well as they can in school. The reciprocal aspect of the relationship between mental health and academic performance among school-aged children remains an important issue that requires further investigation. However, health is not just an individual issue; parents’ and siblings’ health problems can affect children and have negative ‘spillover’ effects on their schooling and educational achievements. This underlines the importance of a psychosocial perspective when identifying children’s difficulties in school. Taken together, health, and thus the school’s student health task, is highly associated with academic achievement and schools’ pedagogical responsibilities.
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| 8. |
- Noland, Ebba, et al.
(författare)
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What happens after forensic psychiatric care? : A latent class analysis of dimensions of welfare for former forensic psychiatric patients
- 2023
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Ingår i: BMC Psychiatry. - : BioMed Central (BMC). - 1471-244X. ; 23:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- BackgroundMentally disordered offenders are a heterogenous group regarding psychopathology as well as background factors, which makes it likely that more than one stereotypical life situation will apply to all forensic psychiatric patients following discharge. Knowledge about typical life situations would be valuable for optimising support for improving the overall life situation of these individuals. This paper investigates life situations from the perspective of level of living research and resources in terms of different welfare dimensions.MethodsIncluded were all all individuals (n = 1146) who had been discharged from forensic psychiatric care in Sweden during 2009–2018 and were included in the Swedish National Forensic Psychiatric Register. Follow-up time varied from 4 to 3644 days, (m = 1697, Md = 1685). Register data from several different registers was combined. Data was analysed using latent class analysis, and multinominal logistic regression analysis investigated what background factors were associated with class membership.ResultsThe results show that there are four subgroups of post-discharge life situations: the high support group, the general psychiatric needs group, the working group, and the family group. The high support group was the largest, representing 54% of the entire sample. There are background factors associated with group membership, including both age at discharge, length of stay in forensic psychiatric care and pre-index crime historical factors.ConclusionsThis study contributes to the understanding of the post-discharge lives of former forensic psychiatric patients and shows that for several subgroups, negative outcomes are rare. Knowledge about these subgroups could be drawn upon to make informed decisions about in- and outpatient forensic psychiatric care, discharge from forensic psychiatric services, and what support is offered to former forensic psychiatric patients.
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| 9. |
- Nordlund, Madelene, 1969-
(författare)
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Long-term unemployment scarring and the role of labour market policies : The case of Sweden in the 1990s
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The experience of unemployment puts individuals at risk of long-term negative scarring and the longer the unemployment spell, the greater the risk of negative scarring. In Sweden, labour market policies aim at reducing such risks in the form of unemployment benefits, active matching and active labour market policy programmes (ALMPs). However, there is frequent discussion regarding the extent to which these kinds of policies actually reduce the risk of negative scarring. It is often argued that the programmes are of poor quality, particularly during economic downturns, and participants are often not motivated for the task. Likewise, it is claimed that unemployment insurance tends to counteract a quick return to the regular labour market. One problem related to labour market policies is that it has been difficult to examine the impact of such policies. Studies often present results that appear scattered due to differences in what is actually being measured and methodological problems. The uniqueness of this thesis is that it is based on a large-scale longitudinal register of data that has provided important empirical information regarding the long-term effects of labour market policy investments. The quality of data has also enabled the use of evaluation techniques which largely can help to reduce the uncertainty of the findings. More precisely, the research questions examine (1) in what way the level of unemployment benefit functions as protection against unemployment scarring, (2) in what way the ALMPs protect long-term unemployed people from long-term unemployment scarring, (3) at what point in a business cycle the ALMPs are efficient and finally, (4) for whom do the ALMPs function to reduce the risk of negative scarring. In this thesis, scarring effects are measured as the risk of labour market exit, the risk of labour market instability and the risk of future negative wage trajectories. The methods used in most studies are Cox regressions in combination with instrumental variable analysis (the Heckman two-step procedure). The empirical findings indicate that ALMPs worked well to reduce such negative effects both in times of booms (1999) and recessions (1993) and particularly among the youngest and oldest actors on the labour market. They also function particularly well for people with a low level of education. However, it is important not to exclude unemployed people who have a high level of education, in the belief that ALMPs have nothing to offer them, since such people are particularly helped by ALMPs as regards reducing the risk of future labour market instability. It was also found that generous unemployment benefit helped to reduce the risk of future negative wage scarring. In addition to these findings, some mechanisms were identified which proved to be important tools for transforming policies into valuable resources for the unemployed. In this thesis, the value of the findings of these mechanisms is discussed from the perspective of the capability approach. Even if the same investments were made in all unemployed persons, the participants would respond differently to the investment. Some reasons for the inequality in outcomes were found within the programmes and were due to heterogeneity in the unemployment group but some reasons can actually be explained by the converters (mechanisms) that were identified in the studies. Thus, the results emphasise the importance of investing in labour market policies, particularly during economic downturns. This is the time when cuts in unemployment benefit do not help the unemployed back to the labour market since there are very few available jobs to apply for. It is also the time when the long-term unemployed should participate in ALMP-training in order to be prepared for new challenges when the labour market improves again. As a matter of fact, the results show that skills from ALMP-training have a bridging effect which indicates that these skills will be valuable on the labour market for at least another five years after the year of investment. The findings in this thesis are controversial since they differ from most research findings from the beginning of the 1990s which point to poor micro level outcomes. However, the long-term approach of this thesis is the main explanation for these new and different results. It is argued here that a long-term approach is needed to find out the long-term effects because ALMP participation, particularly ALMP-training, is meant to be a long-term investment in human capital. A long period of time needs to pass between ALMP-investment and evaluation before the effects can show. Reported effects from ALMP investments at the beginning of the 1990s have often been measured on a short-term basis. It is not suggested that short-term effects should be ignored but it is argued that a short-term analysis provides only a fragmental description of reality, and long-term effects should be given greater priority than is usually the case since they affect the labour market prospects of the individuals over a long period of time. This thesis dispels the “myth” about the negative effects generated from ALMPs during the 1990s.
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| 10. |
- Westberg, Annika, 1972-
(författare)
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Becoming an Adult : Living Conditions and Attitudes among Swedish Youth
- 2005
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis studies youth from different perspectives. These are the life phaseand the generational perspectives, which have been studied via questions of establishment and individualisation. The main question is whether young people are different because they have not made socially important transitions into adulthood or if they are different because they have grown up under different circumstances than earlier generations. The consequences of the outcome are important because they can indicate what kind of society young people will reproduce. The following conclusions are drawn: First, there are clear effects of social structurations (class of origin and gender) in the lives of young people. They affect the distribution of attitudes towards welfare state expenditures as well as the economic effects in a long-term perspective. Second, there is rather weak importance of role transitions in relation to what young people believe is important for adulthood, role transitions’ importance for the distribution of attitudes towards the welfare state as well as role transitions’ importance in a long-term perspective. Third, increasing age and subtle socialisation processes may be an explanation to the rather weak meaning of role transitions, cause adjustments to surrounding contexts and people’s expectations. It is concluded that the life phase perspective is a more accurate way of viewing young people, mainly because of the impact of social structurations, which are believed to contribute to continuous reproduction rather than complete change of society.
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