This chapter presents the country context for Sweden, focusing on three key areas: (a) First, the main inequalities in late working life, namely age, gender, income, education, region, sector, ethnicity/migration, care responsibilities and health. These sections are standardised across all the country chapters to allow for ease of comparison. (b) Second, the significant policy measures affecting inequalities in late working lives. This section has a particular emphasis on impact and focuses on employer-based age management policies, physical reforms, anti-age discrimination legislation, lifelong learning, flexible working, health protection and carer support.

Despite lifelong learning being on the European policy agenda since the 1970s, efforts to integrate learning throughout the life course have stalled. Using one hundred interviews with older workers in Germany, Poland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, this study explores barriers to and facilitators of learning across the working life course at the individual level. While participation in lifelong learning is distributed over the life course in all four countries, learning is perceived as more important in the early and middle phases, with progression and job retention being key motivators. Gendered issues such as caring responsibilities and part-time work are more likely to affect women’s participation in learning, whereas ageism and age stereotypes increasingly act as barriers for all in all four countries. Given the European Extended Working Lives agenda, lifelong learning could be better integrated across the whole life course, including a life course approach to micro, meso, and macro Extended Working Lives policy.

Introduction

With the increase in longevity and changes in welfare states, policies aim to make extended working lives possible. At the same time, there may be various work-related risks that may act as barriers to an extended working life and re-entry into the labour market. The focus of this presentation is resilience, both of the labour market and of older workers themselves, in handling work-related and organizational risks in later working life.

Methods

This presentation draws on 100 problem-oriented interviews with older workers in Germany, Poland, Sweden and the UK focusing on their work life course. Respondents varied in education- and skill-level and current type of employment. The research teams from the four countries coded interviews according to a standardized theory-driven coding guide and summarized work trajectories through mapping risk-related turning points in the work life. 

Results 

We identify three different work trajectories based on the prevalence of work-related risks. Further, we present a comparative analysis of the individuals’ experiences of coping strategies and unmet needs to maintain or re-enter work.

Conclusions

Received formal and informal support reveals the psychosocial resilience of the individuals and the resilience of the labour market and welfare system to meet different kinds of risks in a working life. Altogether, the presentation contributes to the increased knowledge on possibilities for extending working lives by focusing on psychosocial and social resilience, and how different support channels throughout the work life course are employed.

This field report provides detailed information on the methodological approach as well as on the process of data collection and analysis in EIWO project III – “Mechanisms and Origins of Late Working Life Exclusion”. EIWO project III is part of the qualitative part of the EIWO programme and is – together with EIWO project VI, VII, and VIII from phase II – one of the four projects in which primary data is collected. EIWO uses a mixed-methods approach in its nine sub-projects, so that quantitative and qualitative methods are used in combination to investigate – from a life course perspective – the topic of late working life and the potential of extension of working lives on different levels (micro, meso and macro level). Due to the different methodological approaches, results from some projects provide evidence for further investigations in other sub-projects, whereby, for example, results of the qualitative investigations can be validated using large data sets. In projects in the field of life course research, a mixed-methods approach is widely used because it allows for a detailed investigation of the structural, institutional and individual factors influencing the life course. EIWO project III focuses in particular on the micro level by taking the perspective of individuals and thus provides a basis on which quantitative analyses, e.g. in EIWO project IV, can be built on. “The main aims of project III are to analyse the nature and sources of inequalities in late working life employment/retirement and to identify individual/family responses and coping strategies” (Application EIWO programme). Based on these aims, the following research questions were formulated for EIWO project III:

• What events and circumstances can be identified over the life course that lead to social inequalities/exclusion in late working life employment from the individual perspective? What are the explanatory mechanisms? 
• How are exclusion risks and inequalities assessed on the individual level in late working life? Do persons experience social inequalities/exclusion? 
• If they experience exclusion/inequalities: What coping strategies are/were used to reduce inequalities/exclusion? 
• What can be learned from individual responses as to how meso-level organisational policies and macro-level social policies help or hinder transitions?

In the following, it will be described why a qualitative research approach was chosen for this project and what characterises this approach. Then, the research instruments and the inclusion criteria for the sample will be explained. The third chapter illustrates the field phase, including the recruitment phase, the final composition of the sample and the conduct of the interviews, as well as challenges that arose during the field phase and the chosen approaches. Finally, the data analysis method is discussed and the report is concluded with a short summary.

Introduction

This text is a first full draft that includes all the planned sections and covers key aspects of late working life issues in Sweden.

Chapter 1 presents key statistical data for population structure and demographic processes in Sweden as well as labour market participation among the older groups of the population. It is mapping the main political economic discourses that frame late working life and brings in some historically important points for understanding the developments in the Swedish discourse. The aspects of the welfare regime and its transformations after the 1990s are included.

Chapter 2 briefly introduces the Swedish social model and discusses the roles of social partners and institutional context. It also informs about particularities regarding authorities and unique aspects of the Swedish social model. The most information-rich part is the presentation of the discourses and the positions of the main actors in the Swedish labour market. They actively contribute to shaping the political agenda and policy outcomes that translate into specific legislation.

Chapter 3 presents patterns and characteristics of current late working life in Sweden, and focusses on late labour market participation and exit, working conditions, sectoral distributions, and lifelong learning aspects. The main inequalities are discussed under these headings.

Chapter 4 is an account of the most influential policies for late working life in Sweden. It covers three main sections. Namely, retirement and pensions, disability insurance and policies related to the labour market inclusion. These policies are analysed regarding their impact on extending working lives as well as their potential to decrease inequalities in the labour market, in particular amongst older workers.

The text provides, finally, a brief overview of developments and policies regarding late working life in Sweden. Moreover, it sketches how these developments and policies affect inequalities in late working life. This is followed by an appendix containing additional data.

This article connects micro and macro scales of inequality to Lithuanians decisions to depart to Sweden during the economic crisis with austerity measures and its aftermath (2008-2013). This period revealed unequal opportunities regarding the quality of life that were largely created by the gradual re-commodification of labor as well as unaddressed income and social inequalities which had existed since the 1990s. Nevertheless, macro inequalities did not directly lead to the exit decision. Rather, this was bound to the individuals perception of the leaving opportunity and (possible) quality of life for oneself and ones family across time and space.

This thesis seeks to make both theoretical and empirical contributions to the understanding of intra-EU mobility, with a focus on labour migration from Lithuania to Sweden. Inspired by a critical realist perspective, the thesis aims to help to explain the dynamics and individual decision-making behind mass labour emigration from the Baltic states, its socioeconomic consequences and policy responses. Theoretically, the thesis proposes a model that synthesizes a social transformation approach with an extended version of Hirschman’s analytical framework of exit, voice and loyalty. The three empirical articles, based mainly on semi-structured interviews, are situated within this framework. Two of the articles seek to explain the migrants’ decision-making process of stay-exit-entrance in the context of the structural-institutional social changes that followed (1) independence from the Soviet Union in 1990; (2) EU accession in 2004; and (3) the 2008/2009 economic crisis with austerity. The third article brings into the debate the perspective of the sending Baltic countries, in a broader context of the East-West migration debate.   

The dissertation shows that the consequences of the neoliberal policies of the post-communist and post-crisis transformations, together with the construction of formal migration channels after EU accession, constitute various migrant categories. Individual strategies of actively looking for channels to exit and enter, combining them in different ways at various points of the migratory process and establishing informal social networks are re-constituting who can be and who is a migrant. Furthermore, following the economic crisis and austerity measures, the decision to emigrate extends beyond individual survival strategies, instead becoming bound to an individual’s perception of the (ine)quality of life and pursuit of a better quality of life for oneself and one’s family across time and in different places. Finally, as the interviewed Baltic experts agree, the EU’s policy of the free movement is socially and economically problematic, although the official Baltic states’ policy responses focus primarily on ‘talented’ and ‘needed’ diaspora members’ return or engagement. These policies have proved to be inadequate to address demographic and socioeconomic challenges in part brought about by emigration.

The structural-institutional conditions, states’ and migrants’ strategies engender mobility as a social norm in the sending countries and promote and constitute the perpetuation of migration of both ‘precarious labour migrants’ and ‘active talented EU mobile citizens’.

Avhandlingen avser att bidra både teoretiskt och empiriskt till ökad kunskap om den fria rörligheten inom EU med fokus på arbetskraftmigration från Litauen till Sverige. Inspirerad av kritisk realism som samhällsvetenskaplig metod är syftet att bidra till att förklara såväl dynamiken i som det individuella beslutsfattandet bakom den omfattande arbetsutvandringen från de baltiska staterna samt att diskutera dess socioekonomiska konsekvenser och politiska inverkan. Teoretiskt utgår avhandlingen från en modell som syntetiserar social transformation med en utsträckt version av Hirschmans analytiska ramverk för ‘sorti’, ‘protest’ och ‘lojalitet’. De tre empiriska artiklarna, som huvudsakligen bygger på semistrukturerade djupintervjuer, ligger inom detta ramverk. Två av artiklarna syftar till att förklara migranternas beslutsprocess i fråga om stay-exit-entrance mot bakgrund av de strukturella och institutionella sociala förändringarna som följde av: (1) självständighetsförklaringen från Sovjetunionen 1990; (2) anslutningen till EU 2004; och (3) den ekonomiska krisen 2008/2009 med följande åtstramningar. Den tredje artikeln för in de baltiska ländernas eget perspektiv i den bredare öst-västliga migrationsdebatten.

Avhandlingen visar att följderna av den postkommunistiska neoliberala politiken och omvandlingen efter den ekonomiska krisen, tillsammans med uppbyggnaden av formella migrationskanaler efter anslutningen till EU, bidrar till att skapa olika migrantkategorier. Individuella strategier för att aktivt leta efter kanaler för exit och enter, kombinera dem på olika sätt och utifrån olika stadier i migrationsprocessen samt etablera informella sociala nätverk bidrar till att (re)konstituera vem som kan vara och vem som är en migrant. Vidare, efter den ekonomiska krisen och de införda åtstramningsåtgärderna, handlar beslutet om att emigrera inte bara om individuella överlevnadsstrategier, utan också om individuella uppfattningar om vad som är livskvalitet och inte, (på engelska – (ine)quality of life), liksom strävan efter en bättre livskvalitet för sig själv och sin familj över tid och rum. Slutligen, som de intervjuade baltiska experterna är överens om, är EU:s politik för fri rörlighet socialt och ekonomiskt problematiskt, även om den officiella baltiska politiken i första hand fokuserar på ‘begåvade’ och ‘nödvändiga’ diasporamedlemmars engagemang eller återvändande. Denna politik har visat sig vara otillräcklig för att ta itu med demografiska och socioekonomiska utmaningar som delvis orsakades av utvandring.

De strukturella institutionella förhållandena och staternas och migranternas strategier skapar rörlighet som en social norm i länder med framträdande utvandring och bidrar till fortsatt migration, både vad gäller ‘prekära arbetskraftsmigranter’ och ‘aktiva och begåvade EU-mobila medborgare’.

At a time when migration policy has moved to the centre of national and European policy agendas, the three Baltic states are taking their first steps towards building a cohesive policy response to emigration. This is especially important in the wake of the global financial crisis, which generated an increased outflow from the Baltic states.

The Baltic states are facing variety of challenges in part caused by this movement of mainly working-age men and women: demographic issues related to an ageing society, labour market challenges and social security system sustainability. Within this context, the discussion of human resource losses is growing in the public sphere in the Baltic states.

Based on interviews with experts in labour and migration in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and a review of key national policy documents, this article analyses the commonalities among and differences between these three countries’ national responses.

Despite some variations in the characteristics and extent of emigration from the three countries, the interviewed experts agree that the European Union’s policy of free mobility is socially and economically problematic. As the interviews indicate, there have been strong calls in Latvia and Lithuania for a more cohesive intra-European migration management policy to address current imbalances between EU member states and ensure that the loss of human resources in sending countries is accounted for in the recruitment policies of receiving countries. On another hand, Estonia experiences more circular movement patterns and demonstrates a rather liberal view towards migration issues, seeing a virtue in the (regional) open market.