The main objective of this chapter is to describe the mains features of the Swedish voluntary sector and the enrolment of older people in this sector. Sweden has a large non-profit and volunteer sector. The Swedish experience shows that a large voluntary sector is compatible with a strong and universal welfare state. Since the State is strongly involved in the provision of social services and the financing of a generous and encompassing social protection system, the Swedish volunteer organisations are less active in the fields of social services. By international standard, the participation rate of older volunteers is high and Sweden offers more opportunities than restrictions for older people to be engaged in volunteer activities. In spite of a recent retrenchment of the public sector and an increase of more welfare service oriented associations, the large majority of volunteer organisations are voice organisations and less of a philanthropic nature.

One of the basic elements of the Swedish model is a strong contractual tradition and the crucial role played by the social partners in mechanisms for regulating labour market, working conditions and wage formation. The bipartite and contractual nature of labour market regulations coupled with the high union density and high coverage rate of collective bargaining create a favourable institutional environment for the emergence of negotiated compromises aimed at balancing flexibility and security in the labour market. Sweden constitutes, therefore, a good illustration of a flexicurity regime based on negotiated flexibility and largely explains why Sweden remains a country with decent working conditions, low income disparities and extended social justice. A compressed wage structure with relatively high wage floors have also prevented the development of low-skilled jobs in Sweden and instead have boosted policies favouring skill upgrading. In effect, large investment in research and development, a well-developed lifelong learning as well as a more balanced bargaining power between the two sides of industry have limited the tendency towards job and class polarisation in Sweden.

Despite a decline in union density over the last two decades, the Swedish social partners remain the main actors responsible for labour market norms and regulations affecting the terms and conditions of employment. The Swedish experience remains a good illustration of the positive “productive” role played by a developed bipartite social dialogue based on powerful and independent social partners, especially regarding the mitigation of potentially negative consequences of globalization, external macroeconomic shocks, rapid structural and technological changes, and the transformation of the world of work. The Swedish flexicurity regime, based on negotiated flexibility, creates a favourable institutional environment for negotiated compromises aimed at balancing flexibility, security, efficiency and social justice in an open economy strongly exposed to international competition and growing economic turbulence. The Swedish IR system has favoured growth-enhancing structural change, limited job polarization, and significantly contributed to the development of a knowledge-intensive economy, reinforcing the competitiveness of the Swedish economy and fostering full employment and balanced growth.

This chapter provides an in-depth overview of the effects of the global financial crisis on inequalities in the world of work in sweden . It examines these inequalities multidimensionally, looking at employment, wages and incomes, working conditions, and social dialogue, and investigates whether the crisis may halt the progress made in Sweden  toward better quality jobs and working conditions. The cahpter k includes assessments of national trends and analysysis odf swedish  case studies on individual enterprises or sectors as well as policy solutions adopted at the national and local levels.

One of the basic elements of the Swedish model is a strong contractual tradition and the crucial role played by the social partners in mechanisms for regulating labour market, working conditions and wage formation. The bipartite and contractual nature of labour market regulations coupled with the high union density and high coverage rate of collective bargaining create a favourable institutional environment for the emergence of negotiated compromises aimed at balancing flexibility and security in the labour market. Sweden constitutes, therefore, a good illustration of a flexicurity regime based on negotiated flexibility and largely explains why Sweden remains a country with decent working conditions, low income disparities and extended social justice. A compressed wage structure with relatively high wage floors have also prevented the development of low-skilled jobs in Sweden and instead have boosted policies favouring skill upgrading. In effect, large investment in research and development, a well-developed lifelong learning as well as a more balanced bargaining power between the two sides of industry have limited the tendency towards job and class polarisation in Sweden.

The main objective of this chapter is to analyse the transformations of IR systems and social dialogue in Europe during the last three decades and the extent to which we observe some convergence/divergence. The last decades have seen a clear decline in union density and coverage rates of collective bargaining and a marked tendency towards decentralisation of collective bargaining. The period has therefore been characterised by a weakening of the capacity of social partners to regulate the labour market and to an increase of state interventions (labour market deregulation) leaving more scope to market forces and/or unilateral decisions of employers regarding pay and working conditions. If the policy objective of the EU and its member states is to move towards IR systems characterised by powerful and autonomous social partners playing a crucial role in the production of labour market norms, there is a long way to go. Uncertainty therefore continues to overshadow the political and institutional conditions needed for convergence towards an IR regime favouring labour market governance based on autonomous and strong social partners.

Despite substantial transformations during the past two decades, the Swedish social model (SSM) still shares many of the distinctive features, principles and core values of the European Social Model (ESM). In fact, we may argue that the SSM illustrates the resilience and long-term viability of the ESM through its continuing attachment to a universal and generous social protection system, egalitarianism, proactive policies for promoting gender equality and fighting against discrimination and social exclusion, social dialogue as a mechanism for regulating the labour market and social policies, and strong public and political involvement in the provision of a wide range of public services in areas such as utilities, education, health and social care.

The main objective of this article is twofold: Firstly, to identify the major transformations of the Swedish Welfare State focusing principally on the structural reforms initiated during the last two decades and their impact on economic development, the distribution of social welfare and on income inequalities. Secondly, to explore the role of the Swedish Welfare State in mitigating the negative impact of the 2008 Great Recession. The early fiscal consolidation measures and the structural reforms undertaken since the second half of the 1990s have without doubt contributed to securing the long-term sustainability of the Swedish social protection system and fostering more healthy public finances.  However, the  “Swedish success story” during the last recession cannot only be reduced to early fiscal consolidation measures and structural reforms. It is clear that the automatic stabilisers embedded in the Swedish Welfare State, the counter-cyclical macroeconomic policy conducted by the Swedish government and a developed social dialogue have all contributed to alleviating the negative impacts of the 2008-crisis on employment, welfare and social exclusion. The Swedish experience illustrates above all the resilience, the long-term viability and the success of a societal model based on an universal and generous social protection system, egalitarianism, pro-active policies for promoting gender equality and fighting against social exclusion, and a strong public and political involvement in the provision of a wide range of services.

Why write a chapter on working time when Gerhard Bosch and I have been for a long time gently arguing and quarrelling over the overall efficiency of a general reduction of working time and its potential impact on unemployment? Well, because in spite of our minor academic controversy, time has not eroded our friendship, our mutual esteem, or our 20 year-long scientific collaboration.

Taking a broad historical perspective, this article analyses the development of the Swedish class structure. During the last decades, Sweden experienced a relative decrease in its middle class and a stronger polarisation of its class structure. Three potential factors can explain this development: changes in labour market behaviour, a reduction of the extent of decommodification of the Swedish welfare state and large structural changes in employment and occupational structure. We show that the long-term tendency towards an upgrading of occupational structure in Sweden has benefitted the upper middle class and the top-income group. Indeed, the large investment in research and development, the expansion of education and the increase in the demand of high-skilled jobs have limited the tendency towards job polarisation found in liberal market-orientated welfare states. Weakly linked to the modifications in the skill structure, the decrease of the middle class appears to be better explained by the postponement of entry into the labour market related to the expansion of education and by social protection reforms that negatively affected the disposable income of vulnerable groups. 

Using a gender perspective and a comparative approach, this paper assesses the extent to which national care regimes and family policies interact and impact upon female employment outcomes. We restrict our analysis to Australia, France and Sweden, three advanced market economies with contrasting employment and care regimes. For the employment regime we focus on paid work across the life course and we focus on parental leave and childcare as indicative of the care regime.  Previous comparative studies have clearly shown that the gender division of labour between paid work, care and domestic activities is strongly dependent on prevailing societal norms and the institutional and societal context, in particular the characteristics of the parental leave systems, the availability and cost of childcare services, the provision of care when older people become partially or fully dependent, and more globally on employment and working time regimes and the design of tax and family policies. Our central argument is therefore that family and care policies play a crucial role in shaping the patterns of men’s and women’s employment. The comparison shows the importance of institutional arrangements and that lack of affordable child care facilities and poor parental leave arrangements across the life course reduce female, particularly maternal, labour supply both in terms of labour force participation and working time participation.  

Work Patterns and Capital Utilisation, with a preface by Edmond Malinvaud, is a detailed and comprehensive investigation dealing with microeconomic issues of the decision making process that lead to the adoption of particular work patterns. The book considers both the micro and macroeconomic consequences for capital utilisation, productivity growth and employment. It discusses alternative measures of capital utilisation and provides detailed comparative international information of work patterns and capital utilisation over the post-War period. The book includes two comparative international studies of work patterns and capital utilisation in the automobile industry. Policy issues at both the individual, firm and national level are addressed.

The Welfare State and Life Transitions uses the lens of key life stages to highlight changes in these transitions and in available resources for citizen support within nine European welfare states.This timely book reveals that new life courses are found to require more, and not less welfare support, but only Sweden has developed an active life course approach and only three more could be considered supportive, in at least some life stages. For the remainder, policies were at best limited or, in Italy's case, passive. The contributors reveal that the neglect of changing needs is leading to greater reliance on the family and the labour market, just as these support structures are becoming more unpredictable and more unequal. They argue that alongside these new class inequalities, new forms of inter-generational inequality are also emerging, particularly in pension provision.

The main objective of this cross-country comparative paper is to analyse to which extent the design of national welfare state regimes shape households’ patterns of labour market integration over the life course. An analysis of the various national regulatory frameworks, with special focus on institutional opportunities and/or barriers to combine paid work with other social activities, is provided. Special attention is also given to companies’human resource and time management and whether human resource strategies encompass a life course perspective. By linking the specificity of the various regulatory and social protection systems to the country’s current patterns of labour market integration the authors not only examine the impact of the overall institutional framework on time allocation over the lifecourse but, also the extent to which the current working time options actually affect the sustainability of the social protection systems. Finally, in the conclusion, some policy implications are suggested with a special focus on the needs of finding new forms of time organisation and distribution of income over the life course. According to the authors these new forms of time management might contribute to a better work life balance for employees and might favour positive compromises between firms’ productive efficiency and employees’ needs for a larger control on their time structures over their life course.

This study focuses on a sample of six European countries – France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. These cover a wide spectrum of the potential societal systems, with variations in labour market characteristics, welfare state regimes, gender relations, level of participation and working time patterns. As the selected countries diverge significantly in terms of social protection systems, working time and gender regimes, they illustrate the impact of the institutional structure on the gender division of paid work and income development over the life course.

Profound socio-economic, demographic and cultural changes currently under way in Europe are modifying the way in which people organise their time and income over the life course. The ageing population, globalisation, the transition from a standard working organisation model to more diversified and individualised structures and changes in the gender division of labour – these are all shifting the boundaries between people’s work and personal lives. At the same time, changes in the timing of entry into and exit from the labour market have considerably reduced the time devoted to paid work.

The article analyses the potential links between the life course approach andthe Transitional Labour Market (TLM) perspective. It provides some empiricalnevidence of the role played by age and gender in individuals’ situation on thenlabour market, as well as of the heterogeneity in life course patterns in Europe,

using available data about employment rates, but also transitions matrices. It develops the theoretical foundations of the life course approach, and shows how it can be articulated with the TLM framework. First, the life course approach provides some insights concerning the determinants of transitions, nand their differentiation by age and gender. Second, it offers a conceptualization of time and irreversibility which helps understanding path dependency at both individual and institutional level, and underlines the importance of

favouring the reversibility of choices through global policy reforms.

The standard life course is losing ground. More people - men and women -are active in the labour market than ever before, but work is not their only focus in life. In the rush hour of life, but also at the end of their career people work parttime, combine paid work with care or education or want more leisure. The transitional labour market approach in science and policy making looks at the way people make transitions between different

domains of life or combine activities in these different domains. This results in questions like: can men cross the bridge to the field of care as easily as women? Which arrangements help women to return to the labour market after they have devoted some years to fulltime motherhood? Is parttime retirement to be preferred to fulltime retirement? And: who benefits from leave and other life course arrangements?

The chapters of this book give the answers to these and several other questions related to labour market transitions between labour and care and transitions between the labour market and retirement. Scientists will be triggered by the theoretical notions and the firm empirical analyses. Policy makers may find inspiration for solutions to everyday policy problems that they will be facing during the next years as individual lifecourses will become more diverse.

This chapter analyses to what extent bogus self-employment is prevalent in Sweden and identifies institutional and economic factors that may explain its magnitude and development. Drawing on the last wave of the European Working Conditions Survey and using standard econometric techniques we analyse the prevalence of bogus self-employed in the EU-28 and Nordic countries and examine main differences between self-employment and bogus self-employment. We find that Sweden displays a lower incidence of bogus self-employed compared to other EU member states. Bogus self-employment appears to be more prevalent in certain segments of the labour market, in particular in industries such as construction, transport and personal household services. The specificity of the industrial relations system in Sweden, with strong social partners, high union density and coverage rate of collective agreements in all sectors of the economy, may explain the limited development of bogus self-employment and relatively low incidence compared to other member states.