Thomas Lorentzen

Active labour market programmes in Norway: are they helpful for social assistance recipients?

This paper examines whether active labour market programmes (ALMPs) directed to the most disadvantaged in Norway are helpful in moving them from social assistance to self-sufficiency (i.e. work, earnings, and decent income). The study focuses on programme packages that integrate several components and are especially targeted at the disadvantaged unemployed. Nine such programme packages are evaluated. Thus, nine comparison groups are formed, one for each intervention group. Both groups are derived from the pool of the entire population of social assistance recipients registered in 1995. The study adopts a quasi-experimental design. To handle selection bias, a matching procedure based on a propensity-score approach is applied. The results indicate that most of the programme packages yield a positive and, in most cases, significant effect on subsequent employment and earnings, both in the short and in the long run, that is, up to five years later.

Poverty Dynamics and Social Exclusion: An Analysis of Norwegian Panel Data

This article aims to examine the relationship between poverty and social exclusion in a dynamic perspective. We look at two dimensions of social exclusion (lack of friendship relationships and lack of participation in civic organisations), and scrutinise two aspects of poverty: poverty duration (that is, ‘previously poor’, ‘recently poor’, ‘recurrent poor’ and ‘permanently poor) and poverty gradation (defined as 50, 60 and 70 per cent of median income). For income, panel data for four waves are used (1997–2000). For the social exclusion indicators, data are available only for one wave, the year 2000. We find that poor people are more likely to see friends regularly than non-poor, but this is primarily caused by some third factor such as work activity or ethnicity, and not by poverty per se . With respect to relationship to civic organisations, the poor are less likely to participate than the non-poor. This occurs regardless of where the poverty line is drawn and the duration of poverty. These results are discussed in light of current anti-poverty policies and recent theories and research on social exclusion and social capital.

Dynamics of social assistance: the Norwegian experience in comparative perspective

In the article we ask how long Norwegian recipients of social assistance stay on aid over an eight-year period? We focus on the populations selected, the design of the study and how spells are recorded and measured. The data set includes nearly the entire 1995 cohort of social assistance claimants (n = 155,000), and contains individual information over eight years (1992–1999), which is the maximum length of a single continuous spell. The study combines a retrospective and a prospective multiple cohort design. The data analysis shows that there is no simple answer to our question; the answer depends on the sample selected, the design, number of spells counted and the chosen measure of central tendency. We find that median duration times vary from two months to 40 months. The conclusion is that a point-in-time sample has clearly the longest duration. It makes a big difference whether one measures one or more spells. Because cycling is a common phenomenon, the sum of all spell durations is much higher than that of the first continuous spell. A retrospective design severely underestimates spell durations since many spells are right-hand censored. As there is no single, adequate answer to our initial question, it is recommended that analysts of social assistance dynamics carefully specify their sample, design and spells counted.

Social background and life-course risks as determinants of social assistance receipt among young adults in Sweden, Norway and Finland

We analyse the determinants of social assistance receipt among young adults in three Nordic countries, focusing on social-background and life-course events during early adulthood. We ask whether they are related differently to short-term and long-term receipt. Short-term poverty could be more individualized than long-term poverty which can be expected to be more strongly related to social background. We applied generalized ordinal logit modelling to longitudinal register-based data. Both social-background and life-course factors were found to be important, but our results did not confirm the hypothesis of social background predicting mostly long-term receipt and life-course factors predicting mostly short-term receipt. Leaving the parental home early and parental social assistance receipt were important determinants of social assistance receipt, and both factors predicted longer duration of receipt as well. We found some differences between the countries, which may be related to differences in youth unemployment and social welfare systems.

The effect of hospital mergers on long-term sickness absence among hospital employees: a fixed effects multivariate regression analysis using panel data.

BackgroundHospitals are merging to become more cost-effective. Mergers are often complex and difficult processes with variable outcomes. The aim of this study was to analyze the effect of mergers on long-term sickness absence among hospital employees.MethodsLong-term sickness absence was analyzed among hospital employees (N = 107 209) in 57 hospitals involved in 23 mergers in Norway between 2000 and 2009. Variation in long-term sickness absence was explained through a fixed effects multivariate regression analysis using panel data with years-since-merger as the independent variable.ResultsWe found a significant but modest effect of mergers on long-term sickness absence in the year of the merger, and in years 2, 3 and 4; analyzed by gender there was a significant effect for women, also for these years, but only in year 4 for men. However, men are less represented among the hospital workforce; this could explain the lack of significance.ConclusionsMergers has a significant effect on employee health that should be taken into consideration when deciding to merge hospitals. This study illustrates the importance of analyzing the effects of mergers over several years and the need for more detailed analyses of merger processes and of the changes that may occur as a result of such mergers.

Early school leaving in Scandinavia: Extent and labour market effects

The article explores the extent to which the organization of vocational tracks in upper secondary school affects the labour market risks associated with early school exit. The Nordic countries share many features, but the upper secondary school systems differ significantly in how their vocational tracks are organized. Denmark and Norway have dual vocational tracks, that is, they combine school-based education and workplace apprenticeships, whereas in Finland and Sweden they are primarily school based. We analyse administrative longitudinal data from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s in the four countries and find the highest vocational track dropout rates in Norway and the lowest in Finland. The results indicate that the relative labour market effect of dropping out from a vocational track is most detrimental in Norway. It is also in Norway that we find the greatest gender differences in this respect.

Norway: Social Security, Active Labour Market Policies and Economic Progress

In 1990 Esping-Andersen distinguished among three ideal-types of welfare state regimes, defined according to two dimensions; degree of decommodification and stratification and labour market participation. The former refers to the extent to which social policies make individuals independent of the market, while the latter concerns the extent to which the welfare state differentiates in the treatment of different groups. He claimed that it is not possible to understand welfare state variations linearly; rather, there are qualitative differences in the way social provision is provided and that welfare states tend to cluster into three different regimes forming interconnected configurations of state and market, and later, the family. Echoing Titmuss, Esping-Andersen identified three ‘worlds of welfare states’, which he labelled ‘conservative-corporatist’, ‘liberal’ and ‘social-democratic’ (or Nordic) regimes. The first is characterized by strong emphasis on the role of social partners, on the principle of subsidiarity, on an underdeveloped service sector and on the existence of labour market ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’. Empirically it is illustrated, for example, by France and Germany. The second is characterized by minimal and targeted assistance measures, re-enforcement of job-seeking behaviour and promotion of systems of private welfare provision, and it is illustrated by the United Kingdom and the United States.

The governance of poverty: Welfare reform, activation policies, and social assistance benefits and caseloads in Nordic countries

Social assistance benefits are the last resort in national social protection systems, and decentralizing reforms leading to increasing local discretion over implementation of national legislation was an international trend frequently referred to as devolution. More recent reforms have instead often implied recentralization and/or involved mandatory institutional cooperation between welfare agencies located at different hierarchical levels. In contrast to North America, there is little European evidence on the extent to which shifting responsibilities influence benefit levels and benefit receipt. Using individual level register data from Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden and applying a difference-in-difference approach, we link changes in legislation to changes in municipal benefits as well as caseloads during the period 1990–2010. We only find indications of reform effects linked to distinct benefit centralization, concluding that other reforms were too insubstantial to have an impact. Combined with earlier evidence, this suggests that in order to have an impact, welfare reform requires marked changes in authority.

Immigration and Integration Policy and Labour Market Attainment Among Immigrants to Scandinavia

Insufficient integration of immigrants into the labour market has been identified as a major problem in the Scandinavian countries Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Integration depends, inter alia, on immigration and integration policy, and for most of the post-war period the policies of the three countries displayed strong similarities. However, in the early 2000s Denmark increasingly deviated from its two neighbours, introducing more restrictive immigration and stricter integration policies. Comparing both pre- and post-reform immigrants across Scandinavia, we assess the wider impact of this comprehensive policy reversal by tracking the evolution of employment and earnings gaps between 1993 and 2006. We use large data sets with individual-level register information allowing us to account for immigrant labour force composition and to examine sub-groups of immigrants. The results do not indicate that the Danish reforms had any clear-cut effect on either employment or earnings among non-Western immigrants. Moreover, integration in Norway and Sweden was not unequivocally worse despite the absence of similar reforms, raising questions regarding the aptness of the Danish reversal.

Employment policy and social investment in Norway: International and Critical Perspectives

This chapter by Espen Dahl and Thomas Lorentzen examines labour market policy and related social polices in Norway, focusing on a selected set of recent reforms as well as their outcomes such as work participation and earnings, in particular for disadvantaged groups that are often targets of the reforms. A rather mixed picture emerges. Some reforms and parts of larger reforms carry the stamp of a true social investment approach, for example the reform in the Welfare and Labour Administration, and the Qualification Programme targeted at social assistance recipients. Other reforms, such as changes in the Work Environment Act, cuts in benefits for disability beneficiaries with low pre-disability earnings, and stricter conditions for receiving social assistance benefit fit poorly with a social investment strategy. Yet, it should be added that these reforms mostly tend to be carefully designed, are rather moderate in nature and restricted in scope. As these reforms are recent, their consequences are still unknown. Key words: social investment, international social welfare, labour markets, employment policy, Norway