Michael Tåhlin

Politics, dynamics and individualism — The Swedish approach to Level of Living research

The Swedish approach to Level of Living research is described in terms of its place within the context of political theory and informational needs in the democratic process. Two common points of criticism against the approach are discussed — the alleged biases toward static and individualistic descriptions and analyses, respectively. It is concluded that the design of the Swedish Level of Living surveys actually is quite suitable for dynamic analyses, and that the focus on individual level data far from being severely restricting is in fact a significant asset for many purposes. Finally, some empirical results from the Swedish surveys 1968 to 1981 are reported. Changes in the level and distribution of welfare in the population are interpreted in the framework of causal connections between the different level of living components, with economic resources and working conditions as central determinants.

Class, Occupation, Wages, and Skills: The Iron Law of Labor Market Inequality

Economic inequality in contemporary advanced societies is strongly tied to the variation in wages across occupations. We examine the extent to which this variation is captured by social class and occupational prestige and ask how the associations between class, prestige, and wages can be explained. On the basis of data from 11 countries in the European Social Survey (ESS) 2004, we find (a) that class and prestige account for a very large proportion of the occupational variation in wages; (b) that the tight links between class, prestige, and wages are strongly associated with the skill requirements of jobs but only weakly tied to other positional traits, including authority, autonomy, and scarcity; and (c) that these findings are highly similar in all countries examined. We conclude that the rank order of positions in the labor market is a social constant driven by efficiency requirements of work organizations rather than by the exercise of power. This iron law of labor market inequality clearly contradicts major class theoretical models, including Wrights and Goldthorpes. In addition to empirically refuting contemporary class theory, we offer a number of more conceptual arguments to the same effect. At a macro level, however, power relations arguably affect the rate of economic inequality by determining the reward distance between positions in the constant rank order, as indicated by the large cross-national variation in wage dispersion.

Changing work-life inequality in Sweden : Globalization and other causes

In the three decades following World War II, macroeconomic conditions were generally favourable throughout the Western world. Economic growth was high, and unemployment and inflation low. At the same time, economic inequality was decreasing. This long period of positive change came to a halt in the early 1970s with the first oil crisis in 1973 and the advent of stagflation. After 10–15 years of poor macroeconomic performance, including a second oil crisis in 1979, a new trend pattern emerged in the 1980s. Inmany Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, economic growth picked up and inflation went down. Rates of unemployment and wage inequality, however, continued to be problematic.

DO OPPOSITES ATTRACT? HOW INEQUALITY AFFECTS MOBILITY IN THE LABOR MARKET

Abstract This paper contains a theoretical and empirical analysis of how wage dispersion affects job mobility rates. Via weakened incentives for workers to change jobs, reductions of wage inequality might decrease mobility. But inequality reductions may also have positive effects on mobility, and the net outcome is impossible to determine on purely theoretical grounds. Two main mechanisms are distinguished that might off-set the impact of incentives on mobility. Both operate as responses to wage compression induced from the supra-employer level by centralized collective bargaining. The first mechanism is ecological – as standardized pay scales are forced upon all employers, weak firms either lay off employees or are eliminated from the market, while profitable firms expand. The second mechanism is adaptive – the response to wage compression is not to lay off workers whose costs have increased, but to make them more productive. In both cases, a decrease in inequality leads to an increase in mobility. These hypotheses are tested on panel data from the Swedish Labor Force Surveys. The main finding is that the net effect of inequality on mobility is not positive, thus supporting the idea that the impact of incentives is counteracted by other mechanisms. Further work is needed to empirically establish the proposed counter-mechanisms more directly.

Pregnancy, social status and health in Sweden

The variations in reproductive outcome according to marital and social status are of major interest in many countries. It has however been suggested recently in Sweden that socio-economic characteristics do not in general have a substantial effect on reproductive performance. It is noted that women living alone report more general health symptoms than women cohabiting whether or not they are pregnant which appears to contradict previous results. On the other hand pregnant women living alone report more pregnancy related symptoms than pregnant women who are cohabiting. Moreover, in both cases, upper social groups tend to be healthier.

Globalization and Uncertainty: Earnings Volatility in Sweden, 1985–2003

Earnings volatility has been linked it to economic integration only through contradictory conjectures. We assess globalization’s role by examining volatility trends in manufacturing, private services, and public services. If trade increases uncertainty, volatility trends should differ markedly across industries since manufacturing, in contrast to especially public services, is exposed to international competition. We analyze earnings trajectories in Sweden 1985-2003, a country and period evincing accelerating trade, finding no indications of greater volatility increases in manufacturing.