Knut Halvorsen

Work orientations in Scandinavia: Employment commitment and organizational commitment in Denmark, Norway and Sweden

In this study we analyse employment commitment and organizational commitment in Denmark, Norway and Sweden, using data from the International Social Survey Programme (1997). We begin with an institutional comparison of the three countries, where it is concluded that a strong institutionalized commitment to work is of longest standing in Sweden and most recent in Denmark. It is concluded that, contrary to expectations, both employment and organizational commitment among the population is weakest in Sweden and strongest in Denmark. Group patterns in commitment are basically similar in all three countries, the only exception being a lower employment commitment among the unemployed in Denmark. In all three countries, differences related to stratification, such as differences between classes and between educational categories, are much more important than family structure in determining commitment. An especially noteworthy finding is that in all three countries, employment commitment is significantly higher among women than among men.

Impact of Re-employment on Psychological Distress among Long-term Unemployed:

This article reports results from a two-wave panel study representative of long-term unemployed in Norway in 1991-92. We looked especially at the impact of re-employment on psychological distress. Is any job better than unemployment, and does re-employment improve mental health dramatically? Our findings showed that re-employed people did not have less distress than those still unemployed and outside the labour force when other factors were controlled for. What mattered was that re-employment represented a secure job. High risk of distress was especially persistent among those who experienced financial hardship and marital break-up and who had not had previous psychological distress. Women exhibited higher distress than men, and older persons higher distress than younger. To a certain extent, psychological distress was unrelated to the unemployment situation itself, but seemed instead to be due to a selective process ending in long-term unemployment experienced by persons with psychological distress at the outset of joblessness. These persons experienced cumulative problems related to poor economic situations and marginal positions in the labour-market. Earlier research has tended to overestimate the emotional damage created by job loss per se and the beneficial effects of re-employment.

Book Reviews : Duncan Gallie, Catherine Marsh & Car olyn Vogler (eds.): Social Change and the Experience of Unemployment. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994

intends to examine the ramifications of routinization for authenticity and identity, including gender identity. The routines of the interactive service workers are structured to make them be certain kinds of people, and Leidner explores workers’ willingness to accept the identities prescribed by the employer, and strategies for making interpretations of the work that are consistent with workers’ sense of themselves.

Book Reviews : D. Schwefel, P. G. Svensson & H. Zöllner (eds.): Unemployment, Social Vul nerability and Health in Europe. Springer Verlag, Berlin-Heidelberg 1987

based theoretically on the ideas of Foucault. Essentially new in relation to the existing Foucauldian analyses of medicine is Silverman’s detailed presentation of single cases. They reveal the new kind of professional power working in real interaction between real doctors and patients. Methodologically the point is a concern about the interplay of different discourses, or the articulation of the relation between the discourses, an approach inspired by Laclau and Silverman’s own previous work on language use. The first part of the book contains some optimistic reformist suggestions about building a better clinical setting, giving more room for the participants to develop

Book Reviews : Review of Lewis S. Feuer: Ideology and Ideo logists, Oxford 1975

dramatization of their emotions, aims, and actions’ (preface). An ideology is simply regarded as a weapon for the young generation in revolt of the older generation. By using anecdotes the author tries to identify the three ingredients that are said to be inherent in every ideology: the first, and invariant myth that in some fashion repeats the Mosaic myth (the dramatic story of the liberation of the Hebrew tribes by Moses), the second, a compound of philosophical doctrines which alternate cyclically in the history of ideology, the third, a historically determined decision as to a chosen class of time. An ideology asserts that the historical process has a meaning, and that the intellectual elite has a historical mission to lead the chosen class to-