A major reason for the gendered division of parental leave use is the financial compensation during leave. Swedish national parental leave benefit provides 77.6 percent of earlier earnings up to an income ceiling, but collective agreements cover part of the income loss above the ceiling during leave. We focus on the importance of such collective agreements by examining fathers' parental leave take-up across the 2000s, as agreements were expanded during this period in time. We combine register data for the period 2001 to 2011 with the Longitudinal Integrated Database for Health Insurance and Labour Market Studies (LISA) being the key data source. The main division of agreements is between the state, the municipality and county, and the private sector. Results indicate that fathers with income above the income ceiling increase their use over the time period. Especially in the private sector a polarisation can be seen, where high income fathers increase their leave use, while fathers with lower income fall behind. As we do not find stronger increase in fathers' leave use in sectors where agreements expanded across time there is no evident support of a direct effect of the top-ups.

We study the effects of two exogenous modifications in the Swedish pension system application form nudging individuals towards a fixed-term payout. Meanwhile, the set of available options and the default option—life annuity—were unchanged during the period under study. We examine the effects on individuals’ payout decisions and the spillover effects on labour supply and other pensions using a difference-in-difference framework and detailed administrative data on actual payout decisions and a wide range of individual-level outcomes. Each modification increased the demand for the nudged payout by around 30 percentage points. The first modification also induced individuals to work less.

This paper studies the dynamics of child poverty in Sweden. We find that one out of every five children is disposable income poor at least once during childhood, while only 2% are chronically poor. Children in Sweden are protected economically from many serious events such as parental sickness and death. Family dissolution and parental unemployment do push some children into poverty. However, these poverty spells are mostly temporary. Single mothers, for example, are overrepresented among the poor but not among the chronically poor. Children with immigrant parents are strongly overrepresented among the chronically poor.

The purpose of this paper is to study (empirically) the dynamics of child poverty in Sweden, the quintessential welfare state. We find that 1 out of every 5 children is disposable income poor at least once during his or her childhood, while only 2 percent of all children are chronically poor. We also document a strong life-cycle profile for child poverty. Approximately 8.6 percent of all children are born into poverty. The average poverty rate then drops to about 7.5 percent among 1- year old children. After which, it declines (monotonically) to about 3.8 percent among 17-year olds. Children in Sweden are largely protected (economically) from a number of quite serious events, such as parental unemployment, sickness and death. Family dissolution and long-term unemployment, however, do push children into poverty. But for most of these children, poverty is only temporary. Single mothers, for example, are overrepresented among the poor, but not among the chronically poor. Children with immigrant parents are strongly overrepresented among the chronically poor; as are children whose parents have unusually low educations. We argue that information about the dynamics of child poverty may help policy makers to construct more salient policies for fighting child poverty.

This paper introduces the negative feelings associated with the perception of being unfairly treated into a tournament model and examines the impact of these perceptions on workers’ efforts and their willingness to work overtime. The effect of unfair treatment on workers’ behavior is ambiguous in the model in that two countervailing effects arise: a negative impulsive effect and a positive strategic effect. The impulsive effect implies that workers react to the perception of being unfairly treated by reducing their level of effort. The strategic effect implies that workers raise this level in order to improve their career opportunities and thereby avoid feeling even more unfairly treated in the future. An empirical test of the model using survey data from a Swedish municipal utility shows that the overall effect is negative. This suggests that employers should consider the negative impulsive effect of unfair treatment on effort and overtime in designing contracts and determining on promotions.

This paper introduces the negative feelings associated with the perception of being unfairly treated into a tournament model and examines the impact of these perceptions on workers’ efforts and their willingness to work overtime. The effect of unfair treatment on workers’ behavior is ambiguous in the model in that two countervailing effects arise: a negative impulsive effect and a positive strategic effect. The impulsive effect implies that workers react to the perception of being unfairly treated by reducing their level of effort. The strategic effect implies that workers raise this level in order to improve their career opportunities and thereby avoid feeling even more unfairly treated in the future. An empirical test of the model using survey data from a Swedish municipal utility shows that the overall effect is negative. This suggests that employers should consider the negative impulsive effect of unfair treatment on effort and overtime when designing contracts and determining promotions.

We empirically study gender segregation in privately owned Swedish establishments, and the correlation between gender segregation, survival and growth of establishments. We find that the overall inter-establishment gender segregation in Sweden has been constant between 1987 and 1995 and at the same level as that found in US manufacturing. Our results show that establishments dominated by males or females have a higher probability of exiting the market than more integrated establishments and that establishments dominated by females grow more slowly than other establishments. An important additional finding is that establishments with a skewed workforce in terms of educational background have lower survival probabilities. Furthermore, establishments with skewed age distributions have both lower survival probabilities and grow less compared with other establishments. These findings are consistent with theories suggesting that workers with different demographic characteristics contribute to a creative working environment as a result of their different experiences, a greater variety of information sources and different ‘thinking’.

Exploiting a natural experiment in Jeopardy we find that, despite no strategic gain, females switch to a more conservative wagering if playing against men only. Our findings complement experimental findings highlighting how gender differences in risk-taking can be socially driven.

This article empirically investigates the common assumption of economicagents' capabilities to process complex mathematical problems to findoptimal strategies applied in economic modelling. By exploiting a designdifference in the game show Jeopardy between the US and Sweden, weobtain a natural experiment of individuals facing an optimization decisioneither having explicit information or deriving it by noncomplex adding andsubtracting. Given the assumption that individuals compute optimally,there should be no difference in the strategies used. Yet, the results showthat even a small change in informational pre-conditions for obtaining anoptimal strategy strongly alters economic-decision making.

Abstract This paper empirically investigates the rationality assumption commonly applied in economic modeling by exploiting a design difference in the game-show Jeopardy between the US and Sweden. In particular we address the assumption of individuals’ capabilities to process complex mathematical problems to find optimal strategies. The vital difference is that US contestants are given explicit information before they act, while Swedish contestants individually need to calculate the same information. Given a rationality assumption of individuals computing optimally, there should be no difference in the strategies used. However, in contrast to the rational and focal bidding behaviors found in the US, the Swedish players display no optimal behavior. Hence, when facing too complex decisions, individuals abandon optimal strategies.

Arbetsskadeförsäkringen är den glömda socialförsäkringen. Allmänhetens och politikernas uppmärksamhet riktas till andra delar av det allmänna försäkringssystemet; ålderspensionsförsäkringen, sjukförsäkringen (med sjukpenning, aktivitets- och sjukersättning) och arbetslöshetsförsäkringen.

En förklaring kan vara att det är fråga om betydligt större belopp i dessa försäkringar. Det är så inte minst för att arbetsskadeförsäkringen inte är en primär socialförsäkring utan i regel kompletterar ersättningen från andra försäkringar.

Med ersättning från flera källor är det svårt för de försäkrade att få en helhetsbild över vilken ersättning de har rätt till. Risken är stor att försäkrade missar ersättning från någon källa.

För att kunna utforma en bra politik mot arbetsskador behövs också statistik av hög kvalitet. Det finns flera olika statistikkällor men ingen av arbetsskadestatistikkällorna innehåller det faktiska antalet arbetsskador.

En av författarnas huvudslutsatser är att statistiken över arbetsskador och arbetsskadornas kostnader måste förbättras. De anser att vi behöver en ny arbetsskadeförsäkring som täcker en större del av kostnaderna för arbetsskadorna och som ger arbetsgivarna incitament att arbeta förebyggande, och vi behöver en mycket bättre statistik över arbetsskadorna och deras kostnader.

Många länder, bland dem Sverige, har en åldrande befolkning. Kostnaderna för välfärdsstaten stiger, vilket kan leda till problem för de offentliga finanserna. Om antalet arbetade timmar ökar i ekonomin, ökar också skatteintäkterna samtidigt som kostnaderna för inkomsttransfereringarna minskar. En högre ålder för utträde ur arbetslivet är ett sätt att öka antalet arbetstimmar i ekonomin. Den ålder vid vilken vi lämnar arbetslivet har redan stigit i Sverige. Det nya pensionssystemet är en del av förklaringen, men ett förbättrat allmänt hälsotillstånd och högre utbildningsnivå för de ålderskohorter som är nära pensionsåldern är också viktiga. Välfärdsstatens långsiktiga finansiering är emellertid inte löst med denna utveckling. Vi avslutar vårt bidrag med att diskutera vilka förändringar av politik och avtal som kan bidra till en fortsatt stigande genomsnittsålder vid utträdet från arbetsmarknaden.

I denna rapport kartläggs de kompletterande ersättningar som finns till olika slags socialförsäkringar. Rapporten visar hur många anställda som faktiskt täcks av de kompletterande ersättningarna och till vilka kostnader, samtidigt som det konstateras att dessa försäkringssystem inte är särskilt väl anpassade till egenföretagarnas behov. Rapporten rymmer också en första översikt av det stora och ökande fondkapital som byggs upp inom ramen för de kompletterande ersättningarna. Dessa fonder uppgår till betydligt högre belopp än AP-fonderna och PPM-systemet tillsammans.

Most countries including Sweden have an ageing population. The costs of the welfare state increase with the old age share, leading to problems for public finances. If the number of hours worked increases, tax revenues increase and less income transfers are paid out. A higher retirement age is one way to increase the numbers of hours worked in the economy. The age when people leave the labour market has already increased in Sweden. The new pensions system is part of the explanation but improved health and changes in the educational level of the cohorts close to retirement are also important. The problem of financing the welfare state is however not solved by that development. We conclude our article by discussing changes in laws and collective agreements which may contribute to further increases in the actual retirement age. We also shortly discuss the implications of the present economic crisis.

Keywords:

ageing population, older workers, pension, pension reforms, financial crisis

The Swedish welfare state has a social security system that covers many forms of incomelosses and gives a high compensation. Compensation is given for loss of income due to sickleave, parental leave, disability, work injury, unemployment and retirement at old age. Butthere are also complementing compensation systems. The most important ones are those decidedby collective agreements between unions and employer associations. They are sometimesorganized as an insurance, in other cases as an agreement that the employer should paythe compensation. There are also other forms of complements than those based on collectiveagreements, for example complementing unemployment insurances for members of unions.Even if the complements are organized in different ways, they add to the social insurances inmore or less the same way. They give an addition under the ceiling in the social insurancesystems, they give compensation over the ceiling so that they more or less eliminate theeffects of the ceiling, and they lengthen the compensation period in some cases. This meansthat the consolidated welfare state differs in a systematic way from that which is determinedby the Parliament. In this paper we describe the differences and discuss the factors thatdetermine the differences between the two welfare states – the traditional one and theconsolidated one.