Authors:Eskil Wadensjö Pages: 209– - 209– Abstract: The development of welfare and welfare policy in Sweden 1994–2019 Sweden is a country with a high standard of living, relatively small income differentials and a well-developed welfare system. However, that does not mean that there are no problems. The development of the economy, labour market and welfare in Sweden has been dramatic in several respects over the last quarter of a century. The variations in economic development have been considerable during this period, which has had an impact on the labour market, not least for groups such as young people who have not completed high school studies and newly arrived refugees. Also important is the increase of immigration because of the expansion of the EU but also of refugees. The economic development has affected various individuals and groups in different ways. Economic development has also had an influence on the development of the different parts of the welfare system. There have been several changes in the social policy programmes. Privatization of parts of the sector is one important change. This chapter outlines the main features of this development in different areas of the economy, the labour market and the welfare system in Sweden. PubDate: 2020-01-10 Issue No:Vol. 26, No. 3–4 (2020)
Authors:Heléne Lööw Pages: 223– - 223– Abstract: From the ”Zionist occupational government” to ”the Jewish power” – anti-Semitism within the Nordic Resistance Movement The focus of the study has been on how anti-Semitism is expressed within the Nordic Resistance Movement (NMR), what language is used, in which contexts it occurs and what changes may have taken place. Anti-Semitism has always been the foundation of the NMR’s ideology, regardless of the name of the organization, or how they have chosen to define their ideology. Over the years, anti-Semitism has been expressed in different ways and with varying degrees of openness. During the 1990s, anti-Semitism was open and activist, but during the 2000s it somehow, diminished in terms of language use. During this period, the organization reverted, to a great extent, to the anti-Semitic code language of the earlier decades. Of course, this does not mean that anti-Semitism in any way lost its significance, only that it was expressed in a different way. During the 2010s, anti-Semitism has again become open, the use of the code language less and less frequent. Anti-Semitism within NMR is also strongly linked to practical activism in the form of various anti-Semitic actions and demonstrations. Although various actions are not at first sight perceived as anti-Semitic, they often are anti-Semitic. This applies, for example, to symbolic actions where various individuals, for example, on placards at demonstrations, are designated as ”traitors”. Some may be Jews, others not, but they are all seen as symbols of a ”Jewish power”, a kind of parade of ”Jews” and ”Spiritual Jews” which symbolize the supposed ”Jewish power” that NMR is fighting. We see here both ideology and practical action. In recent years, NMR has also increasingly returned to its origins, i.e. the Swedish national socialists during the interwar period, this is reflected in the language used and the importance attached to the history of the movement in a wider perspective. The NMR’s anti-Semitism is also an everyday anti-Semitism, in that it permeates the activists’ lives, how they interpret what is happening in the outside world. In the NMR, anti-Semitism is an everyday practice, to reconnect with Fein’s definition of anti-Semitism. PubDate: 2020-01-12 Issue No:Vol. 26, No. 3–4 (2020)
Authors:Mats Hammarstedt Pages: 241– - 241– Abstract: Immigrants’ labour market integration – an important issue for public sector finances In 2019, around 1.9 million individuals, or about 20 per cent of Sweden’s total population, were born abroad. Against this background the labour market integration of the foreign-born population is of great importance. Immigrants who adapt rapidly to the Swedish labour market will contribute to public sector finances while immigrants who adapt poorly will constitute a burden to the Swedish public sector finances. In this article we shed new light on the issue of immigrants’ labour market integration by presenting new figures obtained from data bases at Statistics Sweden. It emerges that the employment rate is around 9 percentage points higher among native-born males than among foreign-born males (in the 15–74 age group) while it is around 7 percentage points higher among native-born females than among foreign-born females. Some groups are found to have difficulties in entering the Swedish labour market. The employment rate among males and females originating from Asian or African countries is around 15 percentage points lower than the employment rate among male and female natives. Individuals with refugee background have certain difficulties with integration on the labour market. A large share of the individuals from these groups have relatively low educational attainment. This suggests that different measures, such as measures to increase the refugees’ human capital, measures to reduce the employers’ costs of hiring as well as measures to counteract labour market discrimination are needed in order to improve the labour market position of the immigrant population in Sweden. PubDate: 2020-01-13 Issue No:Vol. 26, No. 3–4 (2020)
Authors:Maria Stanfors Pages: 257– - 257– Abstract: The role of the family in Swedish welfare policy In the present article, I discuss the role of the family in Swedish welfare policy, from both theoretical and empirical perspectives. I analyse men’s and women’s time use and focus on the organization of paid and unpaid work. I describe how time allocation varies with gender, family status, and life cycle. The analysis shows that the family plays a more important role in practice than in theory, mainly through the fact that women perform more unpaid work (housework and caregiving) than men, which affects both their income and their well-being negatively. I argue that gender equality must be given a more prominent position in Swedish welfare policy. For example, family policy must be reformed, with gender equality on the labour market and in the home as an explicit goal. The present situation for working parents is different from that of previous decades when Swedish family policy was formulated. Reforms are thus necessary for safeguarding welfare and population well-being in the short and long run. PubDate: 2020-01-13 Issue No:Vol. 26, No. 3–4 (2020)
Authors:Tommy Lundström, Marie Sallnäs Pages: 283– - 283– Abstract: The inner core of child protection – on coercive placement motivated by abuse or neglect This article is about emergency placement due to child abuse or neglect. Empirical data consists of judgements on coercive care in three administrative courts (n=211). Motives for placements are analysed against the background of the discursive changes that have taken place with regard to definitions of child abuse as well as today’s strong focus on risk and risk assessments. Results show that there were a number of motives to justify the court’s decision in each individual case. However, the broadening of the concept of abuse in research and in general discourse is evident in the judgements. We raise the question whether this matter, in practice, has resulted in more children being cared for because of an expansion of the concept of violence. As for risk assessments, two types of causal reasoning can be identified: situations where the child has been abused or neglected and where the risk assessment is about the probability that the problems will continue, and situations where the child has not been harmed but risks being harmed in the future. However, risk assessments are not that elaborate and systematic as presupposed in legislation. Taken together, the findings call for a discussion both within the justice system and in social work. PubDate: 2020-01-13 Issue No:Vol. 26, No. 3–4 (2020)
Authors:Tove Harnett Pages: 303– - 303– Abstract: According to age or according to needs' Age as an organizing principle for support to older people Moral economy studies have investigated public opinion as to who should get what and why, and concluded that older people constitute a group that is perceived to deserve and be in need of support from society. A weakness of the approach is that the category of older people is taken for granted and specific age-limits are left unproblematized. The present study investigates views among municipal needs assessors on the use of chronological age for the approval of supportive services, where persons over a particular age may be entitled to eldercare regardless of needs, and persons above the age of 65 are denied the right to personal assistance. Are these age-limits regarded as justified' The study is based on interviews with a total of 36 needs assessors; seven interviews were conducted with groups/pairs and one individually. Three main positions were identified, where age-limits were commented on as (1) a political reality, (2) unjustified with reference to the heterogeneity in health and needs, and (3) partly reasonable given the correlation between age and needs. One finding was that the use of chronological age was questioned to a greater extent in relation to eldercare and to a lesser extent in relation to the exclusion of persons above the age of 65 from personal assistance. The article shows that needs assessors do not have one, but several conceptions of the relevance of chronological age, and it highlights the importance of adding a contextual understanding to the general images of older people as a deserving group that have been presented in studies on moral economy. PubDate: 2020-01-13 Issue No:Vol. 26, No. 3–4 (2020)
Authors:Urban Markström Pages: 323– - 323– Abstract: Establishment of community mental health services in Sweden Care and support for people with psychiatric disabilities has been subject to significant changes during recent decades. Institution-based forms of care have been replaced by policies focused on inclusion and participation in society, and by a new field of community-oriented services. The formal responsibility for supporting the target group has largely shifted from mental health care to municipal social services. This article characterizes this new field of expertise, and discusses a number of current themes that seem to influence the extent to which policy-level objectives can be achieved. One theme is the establishment of a knowledge base regarding community-based services, in which local development work and academic research have sometimes enriched each other. Individual support towards employment is used as one example of a model developed through a combination of service innovation and research. Another theme concerns the concept of personal recovery, which has contributed to a new ideological orientation, where the lived experience of service users and issues of participation and involvement are emphasized. Furthermore, the problem of in-real-life implementation is discussed. A significant share of the current knowledge on effective service and support is never implemented in real practice, neither at a national nor a local organizational level. This ”treatment gap” should be considered as one of the primary challenges in community mental health services today. This article highlights a study where researchers sought to identify critical components for long-term establishment of evidence-based services. Finally, the field of community mental health services is portrayed as slowly establishing both organizational forms and a foundation of research- and experience-based knowledge. PubDate: 2020-01-13 Issue No:Vol. 26, No. 3–4 (2020)
Authors:Lupita Svensson Pages: 341– - 341– Abstract: Automation to benefit or ruin' The purpose of this article is to discuss and analyze how digital automation of the provision of social assistance affects the practice of social work, as part of welfare. Based on interviews with supervisors/project managers and social case workers, who work with social assistance in a strategic selection of municipalities, the opportunities and challenges that robotization brings to the function of social assistance are problematized as a selective welfare right. The results show that robotisation can help to increase efficiency and that resources can be re-prioritized, but at the same time there are significant risks to the erosion of the social work practice, both in terms of the practitioners’ work in the provision of social assistance and its function as a selective right in a universal welfare construction. The results also indicate needs for further in-depth studies. PubDate: 2020-01-13 Issue No:Vol. 26, No. 3–4 (2020)
Authors:Lundälv Jörgen Pages: 363– - 363– Abstract: Welfare, critique and the media – social workers’ voices in podcasts in social policy and social work Social workers and social policy researchers can engage in social work and critical social policy, in traditional media and in the new media. In recent years, the social media have been increasing in both the international media systems and in the media system in Sweden. One channel for social workers to use to be able to make their voice heard in society is to participate, debate and discuss social policy in podcasts. In 2016, the Union for Professionals, Akademikerförbundet SSR, developed ”Social Services Podcasts”. At the same time the National Board of Health and Welfare introduce a new podcast on social services and health care that is called ”Podcast in the Deep”. This article examines voices and themes in social policy and social work in a total of 112 programmes in two podcasts: ”Socialtjänstpodden” and ”In Depth” during the years 2016–2019. There are several challenges for the storytelling tradition and social criticism in social policy and social work in podcasts, which is highlighted in this article. PubDate: 2020-01-13 Issue No:Vol. 26, No. 3–4 (2020)
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