A Welfare balance sheet for the 1990s

The task of the Welfare Commission appointed by the Swedish Government in February 1999, has been to describe and assess welfare development in Sweden in the 1990s. Welfare is defined by the Commission in terms of individual resources that allow citizens to control and consciously steer the direction of their own lives. The material focuses on the most relevant aspect from a social policy viewpoint, that of welfare deficiencies. The report's description of welfare development is based on data concerning living conditions such as health, education, work, economy. security, social relations and political resources. Its assessment of the various welfare state institutions responsible for social insurance, benefits and welfare services is based on their capacity to constitute resources for the individual citizen. A key feature in this respect is the accessibility and quality of the institutional input. Living conditions among the Swedish population underwent a number of major changes in the 1990s. The most noticeable change was the increase in the proportion of the population that encountered various kinds of disadvantage or illfare. Along with higher unemployment and reduced employment, conditions of employment altered in many respects. Negative psychosocial working conditions and short-term employment became more common. Progressively larger groups suffered financial difficulties and low incomes. In the health field, we find a significant decline in certain specific areas, especially as regards mental well-being. In the area of chronic disadvantage, the number of long-term social assistance recipients increased significantly. At the same time, it is important to note that improvements occurred as well. Real wages increased faster than for many decades. The mortality rate continued to decline overall and infant mortality was almost halved. The general level of education rose. In other areas, welfare as a whole was at the same level as at the beginning of the decade. The population's disposable income was one such area, people's social ties and networks in the community another. At the beginning of the 1990s, very clear-cut class and gender differences were evident in individual welfare resources. Workers and women had more health problems as well as both lower wages and greater financial problems. On the whole, these differences in living conditions still pertained at the end of the decade. Relative wage positions declined in the public sector where women are over-represented. Also, an increase in the pace of work and negative stress was noted among employees in the welfare services sector, where women are in a majority. Single mothers were a particularly vulnerable group. This applies in particular to the maintenance side where single mothers were considerably worse off at the end of the 1990s than they were at the beginning. It is worth remembering that this group already had lower incomes, greater maintenance problems, a higher unemployment rate and lower pay than the rest of the population when the decade began. People born outside Sweden were another group that had considerable difficulties in the labour market in the 1990s. Like many other groups that lost ground during this period, immigrants went into the decade with worse initial prospects than others in the great majority of areas: health, mental well-being, employment, income, social ties and networks in the community, and political resources. The relative position of this group was even worse at the end of the 1990s, primarily in the fields of employment and job income. People born outside Sweden however are a markedly heterogeneous group and the welfare levels of its members are to a great extent contingent upon their country of origin and duration of stay in Sweden.