Freedom of Movement for Workers from Central and Eastern Europe: Experiences in Ireland and Sweden

In 2004 the European Union (EU) gained ten new Member States. However in many of the old Member States there were increasing concerns about the implications of this particular enlargement. Not only did it represent a large increase in the Union's population; in eight of the ten countries the wage levels were substantially below the wage levels in the old Member States. As several governments feared mass immigration, "welfare tourism" and negative effects on their labour markets, transitional rules were included in the Accession Treaty with regard to the freedom of movement for workers from the Central and East European Member (CEE) States.Two years after this momentous step in the European integration process, SIEPS decided to examine the effects from the 2004 enlargement in the countries that opened their labour market to workers from the CEE Member States. The study attempts to provide as thorough as possible a picture of the post-enlargement experiences in Ireland and Sweden

Beware of Courts Bearing Gifts: Transparency and the Court of Justice of the European Union

This article reconsiders the principle of transparency in the European Union (EU) legal order and takes as its focal point the contribution of the EU Courts as regards the presumptions of non-disclosure of EU documents. The aim is to investigate the role played by the judiciary in relation to a twofold question: How open can the Union’s decision-making be, and is it possible for citizens to participate in the decision-making process of EU institutions, bodies, offices and agencies? The article argues that accountability deficits in the field of access to documents have been filled, to an extent, by the EU Courts’ imposition of boundaries on the broad derogations to the right of access to documents. But nevertheless, the article concludes that the establishment through the case law of general presumptions against openness has fundamentally weakened the standards of accountability. Rather regrettably, although the EU legislature set the default position to the widest access to documents, this has been reversed to non-disclosure by the EU judiciary as regards non-legislative documents

Alternative Pathways to High School Graduation: An International Comparison

Evaluates alternative pathways to high school graduation -- such as school- or employment-based technical or vocational training programs -- in different countries, in terms of content, graduation requirements, inclusiveness, and outcomes

A Clash between the Business and Political Climates in Sweden - Gender in the European Structural Fund Partnerships

In this paper we highlight and discuss a Swedish equality paradox in two different spheres: entrepreneurship and politics. We focus on the EU Structural Funds and women entrepreneurs' access to resources through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). Combining human geography and political science, we draw upon network and partnership theory posing questions concerning the room for manoeuvre for women entrepreneurs to gain access to relevant networks, to create new networks in order to establish relations with EU related partnerships, and to gain access to the process of allocating EU structural fund financial resources

Global factors, unemployment adjustment and the natural rate

OECD unemployment rates show long swings which dominate shorter business cycle components and these long swings show a range of common patterns. Using a panel of 21 OECD countries 1960-2002, we estimate the common factor that drives unemployment by the first principal component. This factor has a natural interpretation as a measure of global expected returns, which is given added plausibility by the fact that it is almost identical to the common factor driving investment shares. We estimate a model of unemployment adjustment, which allows for the influence both of the global factor and of labour market institutions and we examine whether the global factor can act as a proxy for the natural rate in a Phillips Curve. In 15 out of the 21 countries one cannot reject that the same natural rate, as a function of the global factor, appears in both the unemployment and inflation equations. In explaining both unemployment and inflation, the global factor is highly significant, suggesting that models which ignore the global dimension are likely to be deficient

The Issue of Tourist Accommodation in the Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism

The aim of the study is to analyze the contents of the articles published in the Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism with special attention paid to texts describing tourist accommodation in its broadest sense. The list of references was collected in a survey of Taylor & Francis Online1 which includes online editions of the journal

Helping chronically ill or disabled people into work: what can we learn from international comparative analyses?

This project has added to knowledge in five main areas: It has mapped the range and types of policies and interventions that have been implemented in Canada, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and the UK that may influence employment chances for chronically ill and disabled people. By doing so it has added to understanding about what has actually been tried in each country and what might be considered in others. It has refined a typology of the focussed interventions that have been identified, based on the underlying programme logic of the intervention, which aids strategic thinking about national efforts to help chronically ill and disabled people into work. It has produced systematic reviews of the impact of the focussed interventions on the employment chances of chronically ill and disabled people and demonstrated the use of the typology in helping to interpret the results of the evaluations. The project’s empirical analyses of individual-level data have identified how chronically ill people from different socio-economic groups have fared in the labour markets of the five countries over the past two decades. It has then tested these findings against hypotheses about the impact of macro-level labour market policies on chronically ill people to provide insights into the influence of the policy context. The project has contributed to methodological development in evidence synthesis and the evaluation of natural policy experiments. By studying a small number of countries in great depth, we gained greater understanding of the policies and interventions that have been tried in these countries to help chronically ill and disabled people into work, against the backdrop of the wider labour market and macro-economic trends in those countries. We then integrated evidence from the wider policy context into the findings of systematic reviews of effectiveness of interventions, to advance interpretation of the natural policy experiments that have been implemented in these countries

Landscape architecture and health

Swedes are living increasingly longer lives, but the number of years lived in good health is decreasing. The present doctoral dissertation is focused on the threat to Swedish public health that is constituted by aches and pain and various types of mental illnesses, of which fatigue reactions, often called ”burnout syndromes,” are increasing most rapidly. Besides the personal suffering involved, the costs of increased ill health constitute a threat to the welfare of Swedish society. According to the Swedish government, good health has become a resource – perhaps even the country’s most important resource for sustainable development. Today, several scientific disciplines consider health to be a positive and holistic state encompassing the individual’s entire life situation: biological, cultural, social and not least environmental aspects. With the Swedish Parliament’s adoption of the public health bill Public Health Objectives, public health work in Sweden is to be based on the idea of finding different societal factors that promote good health on equal terms for the entire population. The present doctoral dissertation focuses on a health factor represented by different types of natural environments. The dissertation is based on two studies of two different types of health-promoting natural environments: Healing gardens – Improvement of ill health Urban green spaces – Maintenance and fortification of good health Healing gardens are gardens that are purposely designed to promote health among a certain group of patients. The dissertation focuses on the type of healing garden that is specially intended for patients suffering from fatigue reactions or burnout syndromes. Interest in healing gardens is spreading rapidly throughout the world. However, both in Sweden and in other countries, ”healing gardens” are being laid out that do not actually possess health-promoting qualities. In order for health to actually be improved, purposeful design based on the patient group’s special needs is required. There is a great need for scientific knowledge concerning how these gardens should be designed. For a long time past in our history, the importance of city greenery for city dwellers’ health and wellbeing has been pointed out. In the present dissertation, urban green spaces – i.e. greenery in the city such as parks, green areas, schoolyards and gardens belonging to a house – are viewed as healthpromoting elements of city planning. Interest in how urban green spaces can maintain and fortify human health is spreading among scientists, architects, politicians and the public. Despite this interest, the problem remains of how urban green spaces should be planned and designed so as to attract the urban population. The dissertation has an applied perspective and is aimed at both scientists and practitioners. It presents findings from two different studies, one on how healing gardens may be designed for people with burnout syndromes and the other on how urban green spaces may be planned from a health-promoting perspective. The overall purpose is, thus, that the dissertation should contribute to the evidence-based design and planning of health-promoting outdoor environments

The impact of information and communication technology on family carers of older people and professionals in Sweden

Government policy in Sweden, as in other developed countries, pays increasing attention as to how best to support the family carers of older people. New and innovative means of support, such as information and communication technology, are emerging. This paper explores the perceived benefits of, and barriers to, information technology as a means of supporting family carers of older people. Following a brief overview of the care-giving literature, with particular reference to the Swedish context, interview and questionnaire data collected from 34 families who took part in the Swedish ACTION project are used to explore the role of user-friendly information and communication technology to inform and enable family carers of older people to exercise choice, to care more effectively and to work in partnership with professionals. Interview data from two groups of professionals that utilised ACTION are also examined to throw light on its potential benefits for both carers and professionals. Consideration is given to the barriers to using information technology, and to identifying those carers most likely to benefit. Areas for further development are the need for practitioners' education and a wider range of programmes to address carers' diverse needs. Clearly, lessons learned from the Swedish project have wider relevance, given that new forms of support are being developed in most technically advanced countries