Gender, health, the decisions we make and the actions we take

This thesis comprises of four self-contained papers that use both experimental and applied micro-econometric methods to explore different aspects of gender, health, the decisions we make, and the actions we take. In the first paper we investigate changes in psychiatric diagnoses and their income-related inequalities over time in Sweden and attempt to disentangle the development by decomposing changes over time in terms of population-level changes in education and migration background. Using Swedish administrative data we find that income-related inequalities in mental ill health increased dramatically between 1994 and 2011, but changes in education and migration background were not important drivers of these increases.The second paper aims to improve our understanding of the use of commitment contracts to help individuals achieve their physical activity goals. We experimentally compare the success of commitment contracts with and without financial stakes attached, and find a significant positive impact of being offered a hard contract. Importantly, we find that the effects are strongest among participants who reported exercising the least at baseline.In the third paper we seek to establish the effect of access to universal primary school-based health services in Sweden on long-term health and socioeconomic outcomes, using historical data on the timing of implementation of school health services in school districts in Sweden combined with administrative data. This paper helps shed light on the importance of interventions occurring during childhood on later life outcomes. Overall, we find little evidence that access to universal primary school-based health services leads to improved outcomes either during school ages or in later life.In the fourth paper, I conduct a pilot study to experimentally investigate the role of children’s books in the early internalisation of norms regarding gender, family, and careers. The motivation for this study was the fact that when women have children, they tend to make labour market decisions that result in substantial and persistent losses in earnings. The study was under-powered to draw strong conclusions, but results suggest exposure to a book that communicates a strong, positive message about mothers in both career and family roles may lead to reductions in implicit and explicit biases about gender, family and careers

Fighting Symbolic Violence through Artistic Encounters: Searching for Feminist Answers to Questions of Life and Death with Dementia

Book on publisher's web site. eBook ISBN: 9781786611185. First book in the series Feminist Studies on Peace, Justice and Violence

Bland biblar och heliga kor - om barn och unga som far illa inom den sociala barnavården

Author: Anja Ferhatovic and Therese Stridh Title: Among bibles and holy cows - about maltreatment of children and youth in child welfare. [translated title] Supervisor: Claes Levin Assessor: Eva-Malin Antoniusson The purpose of this study was to examine social workers experiences of maltreatment of children and youth in child welfare. More specifically, our aim was to find out how social workers look upon the directives of the law in their work with children and youth, in what way maltreatment manifests itself in child welfare and how social workers look upon how the media presents maltreatment of children and youth in child welfare. Our aim was also to examine social workers experience of the conditions in their work and what they believe is needed to prevent maltreatment of children and youth in child welfare. The study was based on qualitative interviews with eleven social workers in Malmö. To analyze our material we used Lipsky`s theory of street-level bureaucrats using two kinds of perspectives; discretion and conflict. The study showed that social workers experience an absence of adequate resources in order to perform in the way that society expects them to. They also experience a conflict between what the organization expects them to do and what they can do within their discretion. The organization determines the degree of the discretion according to Lipsky, which corresponds well with our results. We found that some of the social workers found it hard to act in an organization without explicit goals and directives. They also expressed difficulties in question of interpretation and boundaries. The social workers thought that media is presenting an unfair and simplistic image of the child welfare. They also believed that this image could have a negative impact on the public, which could affect their work in a negative way. All these aspects combined with poor alternatives can contribute to maltreatment of children and youth in child welfare

Determinants of regional comparative advantages in food industries

International markets for food products have shown a strong growth in recent years. Trade flows between countries are increasing and can be seen as a reflection of a higher degree of competition in both domestic and international markets. At the same time, consumers show a growing interest in product attributes associated with the geographical origin of the product and/or specific production methods. This paper studies the region specialization in food industries and uses a shift share analysis to identify regions with comparative advantages in food production in Sweden. The Swedish food sector is of significant size in the domestic economy, and is the fourth largest industry in the Swedish manufacturing sector. The food sector hosts both small and large firms, and is represented in all (geographical) parts of the country. As in many European countries, the food sector is important with respect to employment in rural areas and therefore an obvious target for rural policies. Recent studies of food industries indicate that differences in regional characteristics, such as concentration of firms in the industry (clusters) and concentration of food exporters partly explain the export behavior of firms in the Swedish food industry and food processing firms in France. These findings indicate that location specific factors impact on firms’ competitiveness in international markets. This paper explores this issue further in an empirical analysis of regional comparative advantages in food processing. The purpose of this study is to analyze what type of regional characteristics that stimulate regional specialization in food industries. Of particular interest is the importance of unique regional food specialties, smallscale manufacturing, size of the local market and accessibility to foreign customers in shaping regional comparative advantages in food manufacturing

Stig Sjödin och minnets politik

The aim of this article is to analyse the attitudes to history and memory expressed in the working-class poetry of Stig Sjödin (1917–1993) – both in Sotfratgment (Fragments of Soot) from 1949, which marked his breakthrough as a poet, and in the poetry he wrote for the labour movement (mainly poems published in tradeunion membership magazines or read at meetings and congresses) – and to discuss how he and his poetry are today viewed as reminders of political ideals and experiences threatened by oblivion. There are certain differences between how memory and remembering is treated in Sotfragment and in Sjödin’s labour-movement poetry respectively. In Sotfragment, focus is more often on individual memories and existential problems, whereas in the labour-movement poetry, Sjödin is sometimes more explicitly political and writes about collective memories from a proletarian perspective. These differences are conditioned by differences between the spheres to which the poems belong: that of literature and that of the labour movement. In connection with the rise of left-wing radicalism in Sweden during the 1960s and 1970s, Sjödin argued that older working-class literature contained important political experiences and perspectives. This is also how his works are sometimes viewed today, both by working-class writers and by political commentators. Thereby, it is emphasized that literature is not a passive medium for the preservation of memories, but that it can also transform them and make them politically relevant

Debatten om Sprutbytet i Svensk Dagspress - i sökandet av ett brukarperspektiv

Author: Therese Ekheim and Staffan Jansson Title: The needle syringe debate in Swedish newspaper – in search of a user perspective. [Translated title] Supervisor: Frans Oddner Assessor: Mats Hilte The aim of this study was to examine how syringe drug users are produced in Swedish newspaper in the needle exchange debate. More specifically its aim was to identify how the user perspective is given a certain space and study the consequences the petitions of the drug users could give and to see if there was any differences in how the drug user were explored depending on whether one is for or against syringe exchange, or if one is ambivalent in their arguments. As the study was based on a discourse analysis we only studied articles about the needle exchange debate. The aim with our method was to found the patterns in the statements about the debate on syringe exchange that was written in the articles seeing from a user perspective. We selected articles from newspapers from Sweden’s three largest cities. We found that the user perspective was missing in the most of the articles, and that the production of the users was different depending on what the articles were focusing on. The most articles had their focus on the location of the needle syringe program and the effects of the use of drugs such as infection, which are two debated areas that had a negative image of the drug users. All the articles besides two didn’t have any focus on the user perspective, which is a kind of stigma. The drug users is already a group of people that mostly are standing outside our society, and by not mention the group or mention the group in a negative image is a result of stigma. Media has power in a way that they are choosing what they want to publish and also how they decide to illustrate something, which we could see in which way the drug users were illustrated in the articles

Biodiversity in municipal city planning : examples from Örebro and Uppsala

I nordeuropeiska städer och inte minst i Sverige finns tack vare vår omfattande grönstruktur en unik möjlighet att genom planering arbeta för urban biologisk mångfald. Ansvaret för att arbeta aktivt med biologisk mångfald inom fysisk planering och ärendehantering ligger i och med det kommunala planmonopolet på kommunerna. Syftet med studien var därför att utifrån ett top-down perspektiv identifiera samstämmighetet gällande urban biologisk mångfald i kommunala dokument. Detta följdes av en jämförelse av hur det kommunala arbetet med urban biologisk mångfald redovisas i några av Örebro och Uppsalas kommunala planeringsdokument. Studien genomfördes främst med hjälp av dokumentstudier samt en kompletterande intervju. De dokument som granskades var översiktsplaner med miljökonsekvensbeskrivning, grönstukturplan/parkplan, naturplan/naturvårdprogram, miljöprogram (Örebro kommun) och en detaljplan med miljökonsekvensbeskrivning. Resultat från vår studie var att begreppet biologisk mångfald ofta ersätts av andra uttryck och i urbana sammanhang i princip inte förekommer alls. Det finns en stor otydlighet kring hur arbetet med urban biologisk mångfald ska genomföras i praktiken. Biologisk mångfald ges störst utrymme i dokumenten då den kan kopplas till människans behov och nämns främst i samband med estetiska och ekonomiska värden. Vi kunde också konstatera att det inom kommunerna finns ett stort fokus på grönstrukturens sociala funktioner, vilket överensstämmer med en tidigare studie av Elander et. al. (2005). Sedan dess tycks det kommunala förhållningssättet till urban biologisk mångfald inte ha förändrats nämnvärt inom ramen för dokumenten.With an extensive urban green structure there is a unique opportunity to work with urban biodiversity in northern European cities, and not least in Sweden. Because of the municipal planning monopoly the responsibility to work actively with biodiversity in spatial planning lies within the municipalities. The aim of our study was therefore to identify how the municipal planning documents correspond to each other concerning urban biodiversity, based on a top-down perspective. This was followed by a comparison of how municipal work with urban biodiversity was reported in Örebro and Uppsala’s municipal planning documents. The study was carried out mainly by means of document studies and a complementary interview. The reviewed documents were a comprehensive plan with EIA, a green structure plan /park plan, a nature plane/nature conservation program, an environmental program (Örebro) and a local plan with EIA from each municipality. Results from our study showed that the concept of biodiversity is often replaced by other terms and barely occurs in urban contexts. There is a great lack of clarity regarding how biodiversity should be implemented and carried out in practice. Biodiversity is primarily discussed when it may be linked to human needs and is mentioned mainly in connection with aesthetic and economic values. The studied municipalities mainly focus on the green structure’s social functions. This agrees with a previous study executed by Elander et. al. (2005). Since then it seems that the municipal approach to urban biodiversity has not changed significantly