Denna studie syftar till att undersöka och observera diskursen kring valfrihet inom akademia,specifikt inom forskning kring fenomenet choice overload. Denna studie är kvalitativ till sinnatur och kan bäst beskrivas som en diskurs,- och ideologianalys. Studien observerardiskursen kring choice overload och hur fenomenet presenteras och problematiseras. Vidareämnar denna studie att examinera om det förekommer ideologiska strömningar inomforskningsfältet. De studier som analyseras är baserade kring nyckelordet choice overloadoch är publicerade mellan 2016 och första halvan av 2018. Resultaten av denna studie visaratt nylig forskning kring choice overload är dominerad av marknadsföring och därefterpresenterad ur ett marknadsekonomiskt perspektiv. Studien finner även att det tycks existeraen indikation av två olika “perspektiv” när det kommer till hur forskare ser på choiceoverload. I denna studie kategoriseras dessa perspektiv av att ena har en mer pragmatisk ochlösningsorienterad inställning gentemot fenomenet, medan det andra förhåller sig merskeptiska till fenomenets existens. Resultatet av studien är blandat, då fastän studien visar attdet finns tydliga tendenser att problematisera och presentera choice overload ur ettvinst-sökande perspektiv i motsats till ett folkhälso,- och samhällsperspektiv, så förhindrasstudien från att finna konkreta resultat på grund av det kontrollerade språket inom akademiskforskning och problematiken med allmän generalisering. Studien avslutas med förslag förvidare forskning för att bidra till kunskap kring ideologi inom akademia.

Stressful conditions affect communities at different levels and may involve occupational groups not normally associated with issues of crisis and security. Teachers in the compulsory school system are members of such a group. The purpose of this study is to examine teachers’ view of their own role as crisis management actors in a female-dominated occupation. A Grounded Theory approach applying a gender perspective was used as an analytical tool for data processing. In total, 16 informants from four different schools in two different municipalities in Sweden were interviewed. The analysis of these interviews shows that teachers’ perceptions of risk, crisis, and security are influenced and characterized by social and emotional regulation aimed at (a) reducing vulnerability, (b) increasing the sense of security, and (c) regaining or restoring a sense of order and control. These strategies have been discussed froma gender perspective as teachers do not regard themselves as legitimate crisis management actors.

The purpose of this study is to examine, explain and interpret concepts of gender in relation to information management, crisis communication and collaboration within the framework of (crisis) communicator tasks. Since the crisis management realm is malecoded and the communications profession is female-coded, there is reason to gain more knowledge of how these relate to each other. The ambition is to contribute to an underdeveloped area of theory. A total of nineteen participants joined the study. All the interviews were processed according to the guidelines for the thematic analysis method. Analysis showed that three themes are central to understanding the role of communicators in the crisis management system. These are a) crisis communication as a temporary organization; b) requirements imposed on, and expectations from, the role and the individual and c) organizational greed. Results are discussed theoretically from a gender perspective, and practical implications are given as well as proposals for further studies. 

This thesis explores experiences of meaningfulness and meaninglessness in wage labor, and how these work experiences relate to social and organizational factors in work situations (situational meaning). It also explores the centrality and value of wage labor in life in a broader sense (existential meaning). In the research field ‘meaning of work’, previous research is primarily leadership-oriented, psychological and quantitative. Sociological studies have remained scarce, and the concept of meaning tends to be used in confused ways. An explicit philosophically informed sociological perspective of lived experience, action and meaning is lacking. The thesis argues that this can be initiated through theorizing and interviews with a social phenomenological focus. Theoretically and empirically, the thesis contributes with a sociological perspective that integrates social phenomenological and structure-oriented perspectives. Based on 20 interviews with presently employed and recently retired individuals from professional and more manually oriented occupations, the findings suggest that (a) the wage is fundamental for employees’ initial conceptions and experiences of the purposive meanings of working. (b) People are not really themselves at work. Such inauthenticity has consequences for work experiences of meaning. (c) Employees perceive that managers do not understand their work situations and what is realistic to achieve in them. This can become a source of meaninglessness at work. (d) Some experience working life as a whole meaningful for its broader life structuring temporal and practical functions in terms of socializing, routines and habits in everyday life. (e) Working life biographies matter. Previous work experiences from past and current occupations are central for understanding employees’ expectations of- and ways of framing their experiences of meaning in the current job. (f) At work, non-work activities may be experienced as more meaningful than work tasks. (g) Habits and routines from work may generate an embodied form of work centrality. They may become internalized and embodied and spill over to life outside of work; (h) Employees across occupations value disconnecting from work, either at or in life outside work. This may be difficult to achieve because of (g).

The teaching profession is today a multidimensional craft. Today, a teacher can possess several different qualities and experiences which, in addition to creating competition on the job market, also increases the teacher's mobility within it. 

This increased movement within the labor market combined with the various opportunities that may exist for their teaching work can be interesting in the pursuit of knowing how the teachers themselves justify their choice of workplaces, but also which factors contribute to teachers choosing certain workplaces over others.

In the past, information has been presented that teachers tend to move towards workplaces that show good grade point averages, and while this may possibly be the case in Sweden's larger cities, such as Stockholm, we tend to know little about how teachers move in Sweden's smaller towns, and thus also about what drives teachers to certain workplaces than others in these smaller towns. In order to understand the reasons behind these teacher’s’ mobility and what lies behind their choice of workplace, it is suitable to study this phenomenon with the eyes of a theory that centers human action, since this is precisely what these teachers must do when choosing their next workplace; they act. Therefore, Peter Hedström’s DBO-theory is being used to understand how teachers’ Desires, beliefs and opportunities play in when they choose to relocate to a different workplace. Additionally, it is interesting to understand how a teacher’s career may evolve regarding their carried experiences, and if the consequences of their choices are anticipated by themselves. To understand this, Robert Mertons work “The unanticipated consequences of purposive social action” is used.

In smaller cities, there is often a smaller selection of schools, and with it also a smaller selection of independent schools. Seen from this perspective, it is particularly interesting to understand why some teachers tend to move towards this relatively small percentage of schools that are not run by a municipal principal. This thesis suggests that there is a strong connection between an independent school's pedagogical approach and teachers' personal values which, according to the teachers themselves, does not necessarily occur in a municipal school. Thus, the decision to relocate to an independent school was often grounded in this. 

This thesis also suggests that the choice to move to a more independent school could carry on a certain stigma that is not initially anticipated by the teachers. The stigma revolves around the ongoing societal discussions regarding the free school market in Sweden, where independent schools are occasionally seen as negative. 

The chapter integrates the conceptual ideas presented in this volume and the outcomes of the empirical research on mobile Europeans’ access to and the portability of social security rights that focused on four pairs of countries (Hungary-Austria, Bulgaria-Germany, Estonia-Sweden, Poland-UK) in four areas of social security (unemployment, family benefits, health, and pensions). In the first step, the chapter identifies country-pair spanning patterns in respect to (1) cross-border social security regulations, (2) discourses of belonging, and (3) mobile (East-)Europeans’ experiences of (unequal) welfare opportunities. At the same time, it puts emphasis on the country-pair specific differences and similarities of the above-mentioned dimensions of European social citizenship.

Empowerment is a process or a mechanism of individuals, organizations and communitiesacquiring control over their lives (Rappaport (1987), and there is a sustained effort by nationsand the international communities across the globe in search of pragmatic agendas and policyframework in achieving women’s empowerment. The purpose of this study was to understandthe experiences of immigrant women who participate in multicultural festivals, and how suchexperiences impact their empowerment. Guided by the ladder of empowerment theory byElizabeth Rocha in 1997, a phenomenological qualitative study was conducted with fifteenimmigrant women residents in Uppsala, and with heterogeneous description, the women weremainly from west African, South American and the European sub-regions.Drawing on the interviews, exposure to different cultures, making friends and interactingwith people from different cultural origins, opportunity to have fun, happiness and socialnetworking were the sailing experiences revealed by the study. While the women are able toachieve the first three levels – atomistic, embedded and mediated empowerments – ofindividual empowerments as espoused by Rocha (1997), the study further showsSocio-political and Political empowerment were not felt by the women, though theirgroupings into groups and organizations could influence decisions, legislations andprogrammes underlying the celebration of multicultural festivals in the Uppsala municipality.

The recent refugee crises have caused newcomers to settle in different municipalities in Sweden. Different municipalities respond differently to the situations that arise from an increased number of refugees waiting for decisions from the Swedish Migration Agency regarding residence permit. Such variation in response also affects how refugees can access relevant information about activities and initiatives available in the designated municipality while waiting. This study investigated how stakeholders' in the municipality of Trollhättan experienced their possibilities to spread information about their activities targeting refugees. A particular interest was on what kind of activities stakeholders provided, problems they face in reaching out to refugees, and opinions on using technology usage for outreach. Seven stakeholders in Trollhättan municipality were included in the study; a private company, the municipal employment office, a university and four nonprofit organizations. Findings suggest that stakeholders did arrange various types of initiatives but it was hard for refugees placed in Trollhättan to get access to these local initiatives. Stakeholders wanted to reach out to as many refugees as possible but they have a hard time doing so. The study concluded that information access of stakeholders activities is a major problem for refugees in Trollhättan. In order to address the dispersed and hard-to-find information from the varied stakeholders, a mobile app was suggested as a solution to the information problem in order to create a digital cental place for stakeholder initiatives and information spread. These initiatives, if known about, could create a more active and varied everyday life for refugees awaiting decisions from the migration board. For stakeholders to reach out with information of planned activities and for refugees to be able to tunein to these possibilities becomes particularly important in municipalities where refugees are dispersed in various kinds of locations, rather than living in largec amps.

Studiens avsikt har varit att undersöka bakomliggande aspekter av samtalsklimatet i onlinespel och även titta på positiva samt negativa aspekter av det sanktionslösa samtalet. Därpå har kulturen varit av intresse, bå de aktörens egen kultur men också onlinekulturen som sådan.Studiens forskningsmetod är av kvalitativ natur, med sju stycken kvalitativa intervjuer som empiri.Då forskarparet har en vid  förförståelse av ämnet har en  kombinerad induktiv och deduktiv ansats tagits. Det har under arbetets gång konstaterats att samtalsklimatet  skiljer sig vitalt under anonymitet och sanktionslöshet. Analysen har varit ett kombinerat micro- och  macroperspektiv där avsikten var att  få en bredare och djupare förståelse av problem området.

To promote leadership research on managers' motivation, a measurement (Andersen Motivation Profile Indicator [AMPI]) has been developed and tested that (a) measures achievement, affiliation, and power motivation; (b) measures the relative strengths of these factors; (c) rests explicitly on the definitions of McClelland; and (d) measures managers' work motivation. The questionnaire has been tested for reliability and validity with responses from 580 managers. The application of the instrument in four studies with responses from 565 managers in other organizations supported McClelland's theoretical claims: (a) managers have motivation profiles, (b) there are differences in motivation profiles between managers across organizational types, (c) there are no significant differences in motivation profiles between female and male managers, and (d) managers who are predominantly power motivated enhance organizational effectiveness. Arguably, the application of the instrument may be an indicator of its quality. The instrument facilitates leadership research on the relationship between managers' motivation profiles and organizational specifics, gender, sociocultural factors, and organizational outcomes.

In a time of sustainability predicaments and ‘grand challenges’, transdisciplinarity has been put forward as an approach through which researchers can engage with societal transformation for a better world. This study examines tensions that arise in the on-the-ground efforts of researchers to establish and manage a transdisciplinary research group within a Norwegian university. Tensions have been of interest in both studies of science and studies of organizations. Scholars have inquired into the ways in which tensions between interrelated, divergent demands influence the work of scientific knowledge production and organizational life. Transdisciplinary research groups, centers and institutes are proliferating, yet studies of the tensions and challenges they face at the micro-level remain nascent. Drawing on intermittent fieldwork over a two-year period, this dissertation analyses a local case in which climate and energy researchers took a transdisciplinary approach in establishing a “societally engaged” research group and research center in a social sciences department. Key questions are: which tensions do they encounter? How do they respond to them? 

The study makes use of concepts on tensions and paradox developed in organization and management studies to inform discussions on challenges in inter- and trans-disciplinary research in practice. The case study identifies, illustrates, and analyses several tensions salient for researchers: between the need for both consolidation and interrelation; between the need to grow and formalise the group while also maintaining its closeness and values; between ideas of researchers’ relationship to societal change as both distant and engaged; and between the need to maintain academic autonomy while providing usefulness to non-academic actors. Various responses to these tensions are identified and explored, including defending against, and actively embracing them. The findings allow for rethinking transdiscipclinary research in practice, with implications for research managers, practitioners, and policy makers.

Denna uppsats syftar till att undersöka uppluckrade anställningsformer utifrån ett arbetsgivarperspektiv. I Lag (1982:80) om anställningsskydd är tillsvidareanställningen huvudregel och anställningsformen är en stark norm i det svenska samhället. Lagen ger utrymme för olika former av tidsbegränsade anställningar vilka organisationer kan använda sig av för att uppnå flexibilitet och för att kunna anpassa sig efter marknadens krav. Debatten om den tidsbegränsade anställningen är splittrad i två läger och tar främst ett arbetstagarperspektiv. Studiens valda arbetsgivarperspektiv och syfte grundar sig i en vilja att komplettera debatten och ge en vidare förståelse för tidsbegränsade anställningar utifrån ett annat perspektiv än det som vanligen gjorts. För att uppfylla studiens syfte har kvalitativa intervjuer med chefer och HR-ansvariga på fyra svenska företag genomförts. Den svenska arbetslagstiftningen och dess institutionella påverkan skapar tillsammans med relevanta flexibilitetsbegrepp studiens teoretiska ramverk. Resultatet visar att det finns en vilja från arbetsgivarens sida att uppnå flexibilitet. Resultatet visar även att arbetslagstiftningens utformning är en stor påverkansfaktor som dels innebär en utmaning i och med dess reglerande ramverk och dels öppnar upp för möjligheter att anställa under begränsad tid, vilket kan skapa större flexibilitet. En slutsats som dras är att om den tidsbegränsade anställningen används på rätt sätt så kan den gynna alla inblandade intressenter.

Housing shortage can make it difficult for young adults to move away from their parents. This paper investigates nest leaving to understand resources and channels young adults use to move away from parents, with focus on the role of social capital and informal channels. Results show that both economic and social capital have positive effects on nest leaving. While social capital is linked to use of contacts and informal, “secondhand”, rental agreements, often transmitted via contacts, economic capital is instead related to formal housing tenure such as firsthand rental contracts and house ownership. Parental income does not have an effect on nest leaving, but is associated with a higher likelihood of living in an owned apartment. The study also indicates that immigrants are more likely to live with their parents, and discrimination as well as social capital shortage are discussed as possible explanations. The paper concludes that access to both economic and social capital make it more likely to move away from parents, but that each operates through a different channel and leads to different housing tenure.

This paper investigates how schools and neighborhoods structure the social capital of young adults. Two waves of panel data are used to study a sample of young adults in Sweden. Social capital is defined as access to resources through a social network and measured by the number of the five closest friends in higher education and employment, as well as the extensity and class composition of the occupational positions respondents have access to. The result demonstrates that close friends very often share school context and somewhat less often neighborhood context, and that the socioeconomic composition of both upper secondary schools and neighborhoods structures an individual’s access to social capital. In addition, variation between the two waves in the neighborhood context composition is shown to lead to change in the socioeconomic composition of the network. Results indicate a substantial persistence of context effects over time. School friendships formed during adolescence continue to be important into early adulthood, and the effect of context composition is maintained over time. Thus, it is concluded that the “growing up context” matters for social capital in early adulthood.

Social capital is known to be related to labor market outcomes, but less is known about the pathways between resources and labor market outcomes. To improve our understanding of the role of social capital in the process of labor market entry among young adults, this paper analyze whether social capital is related to labor market outcomes, mediating variables, and job search method. Analyzing two waves of panel data on young adults in Sweden, the results show that social capital is related to getting a job and that the effect varies according to the contact’s position. Social capital is positively related to the number of job leads, higher labor market self-efficacy, and the substitution of formal for informal job search. In conclusion, the labor market effects of access to social capital include both network mechanisms, such as information, and individual mechanisms, such as better self-efficacy.

The thesis explores the role of social capital in shaping inequality among young adults. Social capital is defined as resources embedded in a social network and the thesis investigates differences in access to social capital, and the effects in the labor market and the housing market. The thesis consists of four empirical studies and an introductory chapter that develops the theoretical and empirical background. The four empirical studies use a Swedish survey titled “Social Capital and Labor Market Integration” that includes individuals born in 1990 living in Sweden. A gross sample based on three subsamples was selected based on the country of birth of the respondents’ parents (Sweden, former Yugoslavia, or Iran). The survey consists of two waves of panel data and most respondents were 19 years old at the time of the first survey and 22 at the time of the second. The four studies investigate: (1) the effect of social class and migration background on access to social capital through national and transnational ties, (2) the effect of socioeconomic segregation in schools and neighborhoods on access to social capital through occupational networks and close friendship ties, (3) the effect of social capital in the process of labor market entry, and (4) the effect of social capital on the likelihood to move away from parents. All four studies measure social capital with ego network measures and the main measurement is the position generator that asks the respondent about contacts in occupational positions spanning the socioeconomic structure. Results show that family background factors and socioeconomic segregation affects access to social capital, and that social capital affects labor market and housing market outcomes. The thesis concludes that social capital is an important factor to understand unequal outcomes among young adults.

The study investigates inequalities in access to social capital based on social class origin and immigration background and examines the role of transnational ties in explaining these differences. Social capital is measured with a position generator methodology that separates between national and transnational contacts in a sample of young adults in Sweden with three parental backgrounds: at least one parent born in Iran or Yugoslavia, or two Sweden-born parents. The results show that having socioeconomically advantaged parents is associated with higher levels of social capital. Children of immigrants are found to have a greater access to social capital compared to individuals with native background, and the study shows that this is related to transnational contacts, parents’ education and social class in their country of origin. Children of immigrants tend to have more contacts abroad, while there is little difference in the amount of contacts living in Sweden across the three groups. It is concluded that knowledge about immigration group resources help us predict its member’s social capital, but that the analysis also needs to consider how social class trajectories and migration jointly structure national and transnational contacts.

This study aims to examine the work-related values of Generation Y and why they exhibit these values. In order to understand this group of people and explain the reasons to their values the theoretical framework will primarily be Zygmunt Bauman’s theory of the individual society and Göran Ahrne’s theory of organizations. In a small addition, this study also aims to assess the possible consequences of these values in the labour market. Especially in relation to organization’s Employer Branding, i.e. their strategies to attract, motivate and retain workers. Previous research shows that work-related values differ between generations. We are using a qualitative method collecting data through interviews to get a detailed and nuanced view of their values.

The study indicates that the people of Generation Y value development and social environment (including leadership) the most. It serves as ways to cope with the uncertainties of the flexible society. They also seem to value instant gratification as a result of being used to getting that through innovations such as the Internet. If this need is not satisfied it is likely that their motivation drops and that they start looking for alternative jobs. They seem to be driven by the need for development and this combines with their lack of patience to result in frequent job changes. Organizations will therefore face a difficult challenge to retain members of this generation. This task will be particularly notable as Generation Y soon becomes the largest generational group in the labour market. 

Spel om pengar finns i olika former och har blivit en del av många personers vardag, dessvärre kan inte alla hantera spelet. Spelmissbruk påverkar personen som för en ständig jakt på pengar och speltid vilket medför konsekvenser och känslor som är svåra att hantera. Ett spelmissbruk påverkar även omgivningen i form arbetsgivare, vänner, familj, barn med flera som alla blir en del av ett missbruk. Denna kvalitativa studie avser studera hur en person inträder i ett spelmissbruk, hur personen upprätthåller ett liv som spelmissbrukare och hur personen tar sig ur missbruket. Vårt syfte med studien är att få en djupare förståelse samt att urskilja vilka känslor ett spelmissbruk medför. Vi har genomfört djupintervjuer med åtta personer och tolkningen och analysen har skett hermeneutiskt. Genom vår analys har sju teman kunnat urskiljas intresse för spel i tidig ålder, inträde i spelmissbruk, ångest skuld och skam, verklighetsflykt, förändringar i identiteten och beteende, relationer och interaktion och avslutningsvis strategier. Vi har tagit del av åtta gripande berättelser och fann att spelmissbruk medför stora konsekvenser för den enskilde individen men även för personer i omgivningen. Spelmissbruk är viktigt att belysa och lyfta i samhället då det är ett växande problem som berör många och att det ofta är ett dolt missbruk.

The aim of this article is to analyse how innovation policy is staged and legitimised through the dramatised social process of an event. The context is taken from an annual event, Skåne Innovation Week, which is arranged by the regional innovation system in Skåne, Sweden. Innovation systems often organise similar events internationally, which appear to play a key role in performing inter-organisational collaboration between actors from the public sector, industry and research, as well as manifesting belief in the globalised imaginaries of innovation systems. Through the analytical lens of the event as a social drama, the article examines how the event – and thus, innovation policy – is represented in commemorative films and website documents through which three meeting practices are identified: mingling and hanging out, scripted meeting models and spatial staging. The article argues that these meeting practices and their performed interactive social forms sustain the vagueness and ambiguity inherent in innovation policy, particularly between stability and change. The event can be viewed as a form of performative government that maintains a political order while simultaneously hailing its practices as transformative.

Denna studie har genomförts utifrån iakttagelsen att det i forskningssammanhang inom samhällsvetenskaperna hänvisas till begreppet eller fenomenet socialitet utan att det egentligen redogörs för vad som åsyftas. För att ge ökad förståelse av socialitet har syftet för denna studie varit att belysa hur socialitet som begrepp eller fenomen beskrivs inom mikrosociologisk teoribildning och empirisk forskning. Studien är en forskningsöversikt där empirin genomgått deskriptivt kvalitativ innehållsanalys.

Översikten presenterar beskrivningar av socialitet möjliga att kategoriseras under fyra olika teman varav ett av dessa är personlighetens socialitet och där socialiteten beskrivs som en emergent spiralformad dialektisk process genomsyrad av elementär och avancerad responsivitet. Studien visar även på att socialiteten kan vara genomkorsad av skillnad utifrån vitt skilda önskemål om form, miljö och mängd. Här diskuteras hur socialiteten idag ter sig utsatt för ökade spänningar där alla anses söka gemenskap för välbefinnande och där individen ställs som ansvarig för sina personliga framgångar, ledande till ett socialitetens dilemma.

Due to the long timescales and deep uncertainties involved, comprehensive model-building has played a pivotal role in creating shared expectations about future trajectories for addressing climate change processes, mobilizing a network of knowledge-based experts who assist in defining common problems, identifying policy solutions, and assessing the policy outcomes. At the intersection between climate change science and climate governance, where wholly empirical methods are infeasible, numerical simulations have become the central practice for evaluating truth claims, and the key medium for the transport and translation of data, methods, and guiding principles among the actors involved. What makes integrated assessment unique as a comprehensive modeling-effort is that it is explicitly policy-oriented, justified by its policy-relevance. Although recognized by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as invaluable to their review assessments, the role of integrated modeling in implementations of the Paris Agreement, such as in impact assessments of climate legislation on the national level, is far less known. Taking as its starting-point the boundary-work carried out in public administration, this paper examines how foresight knowledge produced with the help of model-based scenario analysis has been made relevant in Swedish climate policymaking, focusing on the processes by which key indicators for political action become institutionalized through the choice and use of model parameters. It concludes by arguing for an expanded understanding of policy-relevance, beyond institutional approaches and toward a process-based point of view, treating relevance as something in-the-making.

From charting out climate change mitigation pathways to estimating price risks associated with the social cost of carbon, as environmentally concerned citizens of the twenty-first century, we live in a culture of foresight. Because of a growing integration of an ever-wider sample space of possible climate futures into the present, historical experience has become seemingly irrelevant for effectively predicting where our climate transitions are headed, in effect restricting our sense of futurity to its performativity in the present. What has been surprisingly absent as a theoretical and methodological approach among sociologists, however, are treatments of the performativity of the future as the expression of a historical praxis for prognosis, with its own mode of disclosure. By interrogating the temporal structure of anticipation that characterizes computer-based simulations of emissions scenarios, the paper illustrates how this praxis discloses the future in accordance with the grammatical tense of the future perfect. It then argues that this relationship between past and future is the cultural product of a historically particular set of prognostic techniques and technologies, namely, model-based scenario analysis. Against this background, the paper seeks to contribute to the rehabilitation of the relevance of historical experience by historicizing the social ontological status of the future that theories of performativity take as their starting point.

Sverige anses vara ett av Europeiska unionens mest jämställda länder där kvinnor och män ska ha lika möjligheter i arbetslivet. Jämställdhetslagen och diskrimineringslagen har stiftats i syfte att bland annat främja kvinnor och mäns lika rättigheter samt förhindra och motverka könsbaserade skillnader på arbetsmarknaden. Trots lagstiftning finns det tydliga skillnader i karriärutveckling mellan kvinnor och män. Syftet med studien är att studera hur kvinnor på olika arbetsplatser med en jämn intern könsfördelning upplever sina möjligheter till avancemang, kvinnornas antaganden av strategier för att hantera upplevd ojämlikhet samt hur kvinnornas självbild har kommit att påverkas till en följd av dessa upplevelser. Det empiriska materialet baseras på sju kvalitativa semistrukturerade intervjuer som analyserats genom Chodorows teori om mödrars roll i reproduktionen av könsnormer och Bergmans beskrivning av vertikal och intern segregering. Flera mekanismer samverkar och resulterar iatt kvinnorna upplever barriärer för avancemang och karriärutveckling på sina arbetsplatser på grund av deras könstillhörighet vilket vidare bidragit till antagandet av strategier för att få legitimitet. Dessa upplevelser har bidragit till ifrågasättandet av kvinnornas kompetens som vidare haft en negativ påverkan på deras självbild.

This paper analyses whether a multi-scale representation of geographical context based on statistical aggregates computed for individualised neighbourhoods can lead to improved estimates of neighbourhood effect. Our study group consists of individuals born in 1980 that have lived in Sweden since 1995 and we analyse the effect of neighbourhood context at age 15 on educational outcome at age 30 controlling for parental background. A new piece of software, Equipop, was used to compute the socio-economic composition of neighbourhoods centred on individual residential locations and ranging in scale from including the nearest 12 to the nearest 25,600 neighbours. Our results indicate that context measures based on fixed geographical sub-divisions can lead to an underestimation of neighbourhood effects. A multi-scalar representation of geographical context also makes it easier to estimate how neighbourhood effects vary across different demographic groups. This indicates that scale-sensitive measures of geographical context could help to re-invigorate the neighbourhood effects literature.

Residential choices and school choices are intimately connected in school systems where school admission relies on proximity rules. In countries with universal school choice systems, however, it remains an open question whether families’ residential mobility is tied to the choice of their children’s school, and with what consequences. Using administrative data on all children approaching primary-school age in Sweden, we study to what extent families’ financial and socio-economic background affects mobility between neighbourhoods and the characteristics of schools chosen by moving families. Our findings show that families do utilise the housing market as an instrument for school choice over the year preceding their firstborn child starting school. However, while families who move do ‘climb the social ladder’ by moving to neighbourhoods with more households of higher socio-economic status, their chosen schools do not appear to be of higher academic quality compared to those their children would otherwise have attended.

Swedish family policies are not directly aimed at encouraging childbirth. Their main goal has rather been to support women’s labor-force participation and to promote gender equality. The focus is to strengthen individuals so that they are able to pursue their family and occupational tracks without being too strongly dependent on other individuals. The reconciliation of family and working life of women has been facilitated by (i) individual taxation and individual-based social-security systems, which makes it less attractive for couples to pursue gendered segregation of work and care, (ii) an income-replacement based parental-leave system, which gives women incentives to establish themselves in the labor market before considering childbirth, and (iii) subsidized child-care, which allows women to return to work after parental leave. Fertility has fluctuated during recent decades but, as in the other Nordic countries with a similar welfare-state setup, it has stayed well above the European average. The Swedish institutional context clearly is conducive to such “highest-low” fertility. In this review, I provide evidence that institutional factors appear to be far more decisive than cultural ones in shaping childbearing behavior, and demonstrate some specific impacts of family policies on childbearing dynamics.

This article reviews research on the role social and family policies play for fertility in Sweden. Swedish family policies are not directly aimed at encouraging childbirth. Their main goal has rather been to support women’s participation in the labour force and to promote gender equality. They focus on enabling individuals to pursue their family and occupational pathways without being too dependent on other persons. The following measures have helped women to reconcile family and working life: individual taxation and individual-based social-security systems, which make gendered segregation of work and care less attractive for couples; an income replacement based parental-leave system, which gives women incentives to establish themselves on the labour market before considering childbirth; and subsidised child care, which allows women to return to work after parental leave. Fertility has fluctuated during recent decades but—as in the other Nordic countries with similar welfare state setups—it has remained well above the European average. The Swedish institutional context clearly is conducive to such ‘highest-low’ fertility. My review documents the importance of institutional factors in shaping childbearing behaviour and demonstrates some specific impacts of family policies on demographic behaviour.

The present study provides an investigation of patterns in child¬bearing among foreign-born women in Sweden during the 1960s to 1990s. Event-history techniques are applied to longitudinal population-register data on childbearing and migration of 446.000 foreign-born women who had ever lived in Sweden before the end of 1999. Period trends in parity-specific fertility appear to be quite similar for Swedish- and foreign-born women but important differences exist in levels of childbearing propensities between women stemming from different countries. Most immigrant groups tend to display higher levels of childbearing shortly after immigration. We conclude that migration and family building in many cases are interrelated processes and that it is always important to account for time since migration when fertility of immigrants is studied.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a comparative overview of recent trends and patterns in childbearing in the three Scandinavian countries: Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. We use indexes produced by applying event-history techniques to register data of the three countries in order to describe and contrast fertility developments by birth order over the last three decades of the 20th century. By combining the same type of data from three countries, we get a very accurate picture of various cross-country differences in fertility levels. We can determine to what extent developments in one country are specific to that country, and to what extent they are part of a more general Nordic pattern of childbearing. We demonstrate how Swedish fertility has fluctuated relatively strongly during the whole period while Danish and Norwegian fertility have evolved more gradually. Nevertheless, trends in Norway and Sweden appear fairly synchronized. A turnaround from decreasing to increasing levels of childbearing is, for example, evident in 1977 in both Norway and Sweden. In Denmark, a similar turnaround occurs considerably later, in 1983. A shift to shorter birth intervals in Sweden during the 1980s is specific to that country and contributed to its stronger increase in fertility during that decade.

The purpose of this paper is to update a system of annual indices of birth rates and to display trends in childbearing for Swedish women over the years since 1961. Our indices are pro¬duced by applying indirect standardization to register data. They enable us to decompose the overall fertility trends, as measured by the period TFR, into its birth-order specific components. Swedish fertility has shown strong fluctuations during our study period and these fluctuations have been particularly dramatic during recent years. A postponement of the age at first birth and a sudden shift to shorter birth intervals are important components in the fertility trends. A peak in the level of childbearing at the beginning of the present decade has now been followed by a sharp drop in the propensity to give birth. This change in behaviour pertains to women of all parities.

In this paper, we present a number of descriptive measures on children’s experience of family disruption and family formation. We use data from the Fertility and Family Surveys of 15 European countries and corresponding data from the USA in order to find out what kind of family circumstances children are born into and what experience they subsequently have of various family-transformation events of their mothers. Our presentation reveals some similarities but also striking differences in the family-demographic experience of children in different countries. The USA stands out as one extreme case with its very high proportion of children born to a lone mother, with a higher probability of children who experience a union disruption of their parents than anywhere else, and with many children having the experience of living in a stepfamily. Italy stands out at the other end of the scale. Practically all children here are born to a married mother and very few of them experience the dissolution of their parents’ union before they turn 15.

In the present note, we present the main features of recent trends in vital family-demographic behavior in Sweden. For this purpose, published indices of marriage, divorce, and childbearing risks by calendar year are updated by adding another two or three years of observation to our series. We demonstrate that the latest trend reversal in Swedish birth rates, which occurred at the end of the 1990s, continued to manifest itself in increasing propensities for childbearing during the early years of the 21st century. The rise pertains to all birth orders. Marriage propensities showed an increase as well, however, to a large extent expressed in a short-term development that was prevalent at the turn of the millennium. The previous long-term trend of rising divorce risks leveled off during the first two years of the new century.

In this paper, we present a number of descriptive measures of couples’ experience of union dissolution in a wide range of European countries. We use data from the last round of Fertility and Family Surveys in order to get a broad cross-country comparison of levels and basic patterns of union disruption in countries considered. We use corresponding data from the USA in order to find out to what extent patterns in Europe differ from those at the other side of the Atlantic. With a number of life-table estimations we display levels of union dissolution of couples in different types of unions. Evidently, the picture looks different if one follows marriages from the date of marriage formation than if one follows any union from the date when a couple moves together. In addition, the stability of unions that start as cohabitation differs from the stability of unions that begin with a direct marriage. Our presentation reveals that unions in any European country are much more stable than unions in the US. The latter country stands out as an extreme case no matter what type of union we choose to study. Nevertheless, a high degree of variation also exists within Europe; a number of Catholic countries in Southern and Eastern Europe impress with particularly low levels of union dissolution.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce an updated system of annual indexes of divorce risks and to use the sys¬tem to display trends in divorce risks for Swedish women over the years since 1971. Divorce-risk trends turn out to have been quite dif¬ferent for women at different parities. Trends for women in their first marriage (the majority) are also somewhat differ¬ent from trends in later marriages. After a spurt in divorces at parity 0 connected with a divorce reform in 1974, divorce risks have been quite stable for women at this parity, but they have increased steadily among married mothers, mostly as an effect of an increasing prevalence of premarital childbear¬ing. Our indexes are produced by an indirect standardization of register data with respect to a woman's age at marriage, du¬ration of marriage, and order of marriage. We also re¬commend standardization with respect to an indicator of premari¬tal childbearing, which is particularly important in a population with extensive nonmarital cohabitation.

In a Europe where most countries exhibit low or “lowest-low” fertility, the experience of Sweden and its Nordic neighbors has become of increasing interest to policy makers and social scientists concerned with the causes and consequences of low fertility. Nordic fertility can be labeled as “highest-low”: the fertility of Sweden and its neighbors is below the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman but still high as compared to many other developed countries. Fertility in Sweden has fluctuated during recent decades but, as in the other Nordic countries with a similar welfare-state setup, it has stayed well above the European average. The present chapter provides insights into the recent childbearing developments in Sweden and discusses the role of family policies in shaping childbearing behavior. Evidence is provided that institutional factors appear to be far more decisive than cultural ones in influencing childbearing behavior, and some specific impacts of family policies on childbearing dynamics are demonstrated. In this respect, it is important to note that Swedish family policies have never been aimed directly at encouraging childbirth. Their main goal has rather been to support women’s labor-force participation and to promote gender equality: any fertility-stimulating impact needs to be seen as a side effect of these policies. The reconciliation of family and working life of women in Sweden is supported by the design of the country’s taxation, social-security, and parental-leave systems, and the easy access to high-quality subsidized child-care.

Patterns in family formation in Sweden display a number of regularities. After nest-leaving and a period of labor-market adjustments, union formation and union dynamics, couples tend to consider having children. A prerequisite for this normally is that both partners are established properly in the labor market. After becoming parents, both women and men remain active in the labor force. These patterns in behavior are supported by the impact of Swedish family policies whose main goal it is to support women’s and men’s labor-force participation and to promote social and gender equality. A side effect of these policies seems to be a relatively high fertility as the policy setup removes many of the obstacles for women to combine work and family life. The reconciliation of family and working life is facilitated by (i) individual taxation and individual-based social-security systems, which makes it less attractive for couples to pursue gendered segregation of work and care, (ii) an income-replacement based parental-leave system, which gives women incentives to establish themselves in the labor market before considering childbirth, and (iii) subsidized child-care, which allows women to return to work after parental leave. In this review, I discuss the role of Swedish family policy in shaping life-cycle behavior and demonstrate some specific impacts of family policies on childbearing dynamics.

The purpose of this paper is to give an overview of recent trends in childbearing in neighboring Norway and Sweden. We use indexes pro¬duced by applying indirect standardization to register data of these two countries in order to describe and contrast their fertility developments over the last four decades. Our indexes enable us to decompose overall fertility trends into birth-order specific components, and by combining the same kind of data from two countries we get a very accurate picture of various cross-country differences in fertility levels. We demonstrate how Swedish fertility has fluctuated relatively strongly during the whole period while Norwegian fertility has evolved more gradually, at least during the last two decades. A turnaround from decreasing to increasing levels of childbearing is evident in 1977 in both countries while a sudden shift to shorter birth intervals is specific to Sweden in the 1980s and contributed to its more spectacular increase in fertility during that decade.