Welfare — Nordic Labour Journal

Mobilising for a strong social Europe

(Apr 29, 2024) On 16 April, a new social declaration on the future of employment policy covering the years 2024 to 2019 was adopted in Belgian La Hulpe. The La Hulpe Declaration was signed by the Belgian Presidency on behalf of 25 countries. Sweden and Austria were the only EU states not to sign.

Lava-hit Icelandic town: "We don't know when we can rebuild"

(Jan 26, 2024) Grindavík has been largely empty since 10 November. The 4000 inhabitants of the Icelandic fishing town on the south coast of the Reykjanes Peninsula had to move as a lava corridor formed partly underneath the town, causing strong earthquakes and a lot of ground movement.

Fighting domestic violence in Latvia with Finnish and Norwegian support

(Aug 22, 2023) Just a lovers’ spat. A common explanation in Latvia for domestic violence, although legislation has been considerably tightened in recent years. The country’s Marta Centre, with support from Norway, is working to reduce stereotypical perceptions among Latvian government officials.

Scarpetta: The OECD has learned a lot from studying the Nordics

(Apr 27, 2023) Stefano Scarpetta is excited when he goes up to the podium at the start of the OECD and Nordic Council of Ministers conference in Reykjavik. "I don't know how you did it, but thank you for the fantastic northern lights that we got to experience last night!"

Iceland's record-breaking parental leave "not perfect"

(Sep 22, 2022) Iceland's parliament passed a new law on parents’ leave in 2021 giving each parent at least six months off – the longest paternity leave in the Nordics. Yet only six weeks can now be split between them, a big change from earlier when parents could split far more time between them. Usually the mother took the entire leave that could be split.

Dads on equal footing with mums in Denmark’s new parental leave law

(Aug 18, 2022) More gender equality in the labour market and more fathers on leave with small children. This is what Danish families can now look forward to after the government has given fathers nine extra weeks of earmarked paternity leave.

Faroe Islands: Four weeks enough for father and child?

(Aug 18, 2022) Faroese fathers use four out of the 52 weeks of the available parental leave while mothers use 48. The reason is economic, explains a father and the head of the Gender Equality Commission.

Trust levels in Sweden are swaying

(Sep 08, 2021) Trust between people in Sweden is high, just like in the other Nordic countries. And despite the pandemic and high death rates, trust remains high in Sweden compared to the rest of the world. But on a local level, there is a growing gap between areas of high and low trust, according to the latest Trust Barometer.

Cash benefit reform to fight child poverty in Denmark

(Jun 29, 2021) The safety net for Denmark’s poorest – cash benefits – should be completely reformed, argues a government commission. It proposes support for leisure activities for children in poor families and the opportunity for people to do some work without losing access to cash benefits.

Women’s pay increases, men win at lifetime earnings

(Feb 24, 2021) Swedish women's income averages 77.7% of that of men’s over a lifetime of work. This has not changed since 1995 and represents 3.2 million kronor (€319,000) on average. And government agencies contribute to this development concludes the Commission for gender-equal lifetime earnings in its first report.

Towards happier times?

(Nov 11, 2020) A Covid-19 vaccine with a 90% success rate was a longed-for piece of news as the Nordic region is facing the second wave of the pandemic. This crisis also impacts on the integration of newly-arrived immigrants.

Vaasa wants to attract more people by making them the world’s happiest

(Nov 11, 2020) The Finnish city of Vaasa was at the very start of a campaign to make it the happiest city on Earth. Then corona hit. Now it remains to be seen whether the city and its inhabitants can create greater happiness in the depths of a crisis and a pandemic.

The skewed distribution of welfare

(Dec 17, 2019) In Finland, there has been a government crisis. In Sweden, the politicians quarrel over the Public Employment Service and in Norway the scandal where thousands were branded benefit cheats, continues. At the same time, the gap between the poor and the rich is slowly but surely increasing - even in the Faroe Islands where growth has been highest.

Faroe Islands: big economic growth yet increasing poverty

(Dec 16, 2019) The Faroe Islands are doing very well. But things are also going very badly. One survey shows the Faroes had the greatest economic growth in Europe last year. At the same time, the number of Faroese at risk of poverty rose from 9 to 10.7 %. “A worrying trend,” says trade union coordinator Sonja Jógvansdóttir.

Fraud in the welfare state

(Nov 27, 2019) The word fraud has been used a lot in the welfare debate in the Nordics this autumn. In Norway, the “NAV scandal” has been dominating the news. In Denmark, an employee at the National Board of Social Services is in court charged with embezzling more than 100 million Danish kroner, while unemployment statistics for Sweden have been compromised.

Fundamental misinterpretation led to Norwegian legal scandal

(Nov 27, 2019) It has been called Norway’s worst ever miscarriage of justice. Thousands of people were accused of cheating the benefits system when accepting unemployment allowance and other support while living abroad. It then turned out it was never illegal – as long as it happened within the EEA.

Danish welfare agency wide open for fraudster

(Nov 27, 2019) Should an employee get a lesser sentence if it is easy to steal from the employer? This issue is currently being debated in the criminal case brought against Danish Britta Nielsen, who stole more than 100 million kroner (over €13m) from her employer, the Danish National Board of Social Services. The money had been allocated to disadvantaged citizens.

Sweden – more generous than what EU law demands

(Nov 27, 2019) For many years, Swedish authorities considered it to be people’s right to take their so-called guaranteed pension (garantipension) with them if they moved abroad. Yet, a couple of years ago, the EU Court of Justice made it clear that Sweden was not at all obliged to pay the guaranteed pension to people living in other countries.

The transnationals – when one country is not enough

(Nov 27, 2019) “More and more people chose to be transnational. They don’t want to live in just one of two countries, but in both. This might not be a huge number of people, but they do represent a challenge for national welfare systems,” says Jørgen Carling. He has spent several years leading a research project looking at the phenomenon at Prio.

A portrait of the richest of the rich in Finland

(Nov 27, 2019) Who are the richest one in a thousand in Finland – the euro millionaires? How do they view themselves and other Finns? These issues are being explored in one of the most discussed books this autumn: Huipputuloiset – or something like The Top Earners in English.