Since the early 2000s regional enlargement (“regionförstoring”) has become an important objective in the Swedish regional policy. Smaller regions are intended to be functionally integrated into larger neighbours through intensified commuting. This strive is facilitated by the fact that the...

The increase in the ratio of the elderly to the working age population as the demographic transition of low fertility and low mortality proceeds, has spurred a discussion concerning the equity of intergenerational transfers. The central question is if and how the state can afford the pensions...

The purpose of this paper is twofold. The primary purpose is to try and explain both the temporal and the spatial variation of poverty rates in terms of unemployment insurance indicators and structural/sociodemographic factors. Secondly, the paper aims to test the 'convergence hypothesis' of the...

This study examines labour supply responses to spousal sickness absence (SSA) using a Swedish longitudinal panel data, from 1996-2002. The overall results present an evidence of a decrease in labour supply in response to spousal sickness absence. The effect on labour supply increases with...

Demographic projections of age structure provide the best information available on long-term human resources and demand. In current data fairly robust correlations with GDP and GDP growth have been discovered. In this paper we use these two facts and study the forecasting properties of...

The aim of this article is to study how the ideas of a sustainable society have developed and adapted to Swedish politics. It starts with the assumption that new ideas have a greater possibility to make a difference if they adapt to the political culture, and if important actors make the ideas...

Europe has undergone profound changes in fertility behaviour in the last decades. After years of falling fertility, it seems that we have now reached a phase of stabilisation in most countries of the European Union. However, stabilisation has occurred at very different levels in different part...

Ageing societies need to supply support to an ever growing segment of elderly dependent population without compromising the future sustainability for the currently young or unborn population. Current tendencies to focus on policy solutions like automatic stabilisers and norm based pre-commitment...

The goal of this study is to investigate whether and how fast Swedish women returned to work after their first birth and what were the incentives and constraints for their decisions during the latest decades when Sweden was experiencing significant fluctuations both in its economy and in its...

Huvudsyftet med denna rapport är att identifiera vilka ”tunga trender” som kommer att prägla samhällsutvecklingen under 2000-talet. Metodiskt har vi valt att utnyttja en demografisk förklaringsansats. På basis av befolkningsprognoser som visar förskjutningar i den globala...