Stability or change in the Swedish Labour Market Regime?

From the late 1970s to the early 1990s Sweden diverted from the rest of Western Europe. The employment rate was high and unemployment was kept very low. But in the early 1990s unemployment started to rise also in Sweden. In this paper the worsened situation for low educated in general, and youth in particular, are related to two institutional factors: a changed organisation of vocational education in upper secondary schooling and changes in labour market policy, where changes in vocational education is understood as a cause and changes in labour market policy as an effect of rising obstacles for low educated. Of course, there are several other factors that have to be considered in order to get the full picture, but reforms in the upper secondary school system as well as in labour market policy are of great interest as they can be apprehended as parts of broader changes in the traditional Swedish labour market model. Studies of changes in the Swedish model can also be seen as part of a wider research interest concerning the effectiveness of competing institutional models of capitalism. It’s argued that changes in schooling are an important factor behind increasing social marginalisation and income dispersion. The focus is primarily on the ages between 20 and 24. Changes in upper secondary schooling are also valued in connection to the supply of youth measures connected to labour market policy. Since the beginning of the 1990s, there has been a huge increase of participants in programs directed to youth. This is a direct effect of rising unemployment and increasing troubles for those with unfinished upper secondary education. But it’s also possible to trace changes in labour market policy to broader institutional transformations in the Swedish labour market model. These changes will first and foremost be analysed as an expression of stronger segmentation forces.Swedish Labour Market; low educated; young adults

Stability or change in the Swedish Labour Market Regime?

No abstract available

Vocational education in Sweden and youth transitions to working life : - challenges and possibilities in the light of a local follow-up study

The basis of this article is a follow-up study of a cohort of pupils in the third largest city of Sweden, Malmö. The pupils finished fourth grade at compulsory school in 2008. We have data about every individual in the cohort as well as corresponding information about their parents. The information concern educational choices, educational accomplishments, employment relations, incomes from work and different kinds of social benefits and allowances. We got annual data on these variables from 2008 until the last follow-up year 2019 when most of the individuals were 21 years old. Most of them left upper secondary school in 2017 when they were 19 years old. They were therefore in the beginning of their transition 2019, either aiming for education or work. The results show that vocational education generated favourable conditions for work and incomes provided that the diploma goals ware reached. Individuals with foreign background and with unfavourable socio-economic origins were overrepresented among those that didn’t reach the diploma goals; this was true for students on VET-programmes as well as higher education preparatory programmes. It should also be mentioned that experiences from a national programme in upper secondary school generally improved conditions for establishment. Those that didn’t reach the goals of compulsory school and weren’t eligible for studying at a national programme met the greatest difficulties in finding jobs and decent income levels

An effect of initial spacing on properties of qualities and volume in lodgepole pine stands (Pinus contorta var. latifolia)

At the beginning of the 1970´s forestry feared an imbalance in the future wood supply. Because of this anticipated "timber slump" forest companies undertook a variety of measures to counter this. One of these measures was the introduction of exotic tree species. The choice finally ended up with lodgepole pines which were considered a fast growing tree species compared to our native tree species. Theambition for the new lodgepole pine stands were to run these with rotation periods of between 40-60 years, thus smoothing out the “timber slump” that was anticipated. The knowledge of how to optimally manage lodgepole pine to achieve desirable results is still limited. This study aimed to examine how different initial spacings affect production on various wood properties. The results showed that initial spacing has a major impact on volume growth, as well as various wood properties. The average volume of the densest spacing was 96 percent higher than in the most sparse spacing. The presence of different quality defects also varied significantly between the different units. Highest height to living crown, largest mean diameter and the highest percentage of damaged trees could be found in the three-meter spacing. A reasonable balance between volume production and timber quality should be a spacing of 2.0x2.0 meters.I början av 1960-talet befarades en obalans i Sveriges framtida virkesförsörjning. På grund av denna befarade ”virkessvacka” så genomförde skogsbruket en rad olika åtgärder för att motverka detta. En av dessa åtgärder var att införa exotiska trädslag. Det bästa alternativet ansågs vara Pinus contorta (contortatall) som ansågs vara ett mer snabbväxande trädslag jämfört med våra inhemska trädslag. Målsättningen med de nyanlagda contortatallbestånden var att driva dessa med omloppstider på mellan 40-60 år och på så sätt jämna ut den virkessvacka som var befarad. Kunskapen om hur man på optimalt sätt skulle sköta contortatallen för att uppnå önskvärda resultat är än idag begränsad. Denna studie syftar till att undersöka hur olika planteringsförband vid anläggningen av contortatall påverkar volymutvecklingen, samt olika virkesegenskaper. Resultatet visade att val av planteringsförband har stor inverkan på volymutvecklingen, samt olika virkesegenskaper. Medelvolymen i det tätaste förbandet var 96 procent högre än i det glesaste förbandet. Förekomsten av olika kvalitétsdefekter varierade också signifikant mellan de olika förbanden. Lägst krongräns, störst medeldiameter samt högst andel skadade träd gick att återfinna i tremetersförbanden. En rimlig avvägning mellan volymproduktion och timmerkvalité borde vara ett förband på 2,0x2,0 meter

Lärlingsutbildningen – aktuella erfarenheter och framtida möjligheter

Intresset för lärlingsutbildning har ökat påtagligt i Sverige. Inom gymnasieskolan inleddes en försöksverksamhet 2008 som i och med gymnasiereformen 2011 (Gy11) växlades över i en reguljär utbildningsverksamhet. Dessutom förekommer en mer klassisk lärlingsutbildning i avtalsreglerade former som färdigutbildning inom ett antal branscher. Lärlingsutbildningsbegreppet används också emellanåt inom arbetsmarknadspolitiken och som beteckning på kommunala sysselsättningsprojekt. Författarna till rapporten lyfter fram problemet med att lärlingsutbildningen tillskrivs flera olika betydelser. Det skapar förvirring. Formerna för att följa upp och kvalitetssäkra lärlingsutbildningen – både i och utanför gymnasieskolan – bör utvecklas för att både arbetsgivare och lärlingar ska få en klarare bild av utbildningens betydelse ur ett kompetensförsörjningsperspektiv

Kvantitativa metoder i socialpolitiska studier : - en introduktion med frågor och övningsexempel i fyra delar

I rapporten underlaget presenteras grundläggande utgångspunkter och verktyg för studier som baseras på kvantitativa metoder. Avsikten är i första hand att komplettera kurslitteraturen på området och visa hur kvantitativa analysmetoder kan nyttjas i samband med socialpolitiskt inriktade studier. Syftet är också att öka kunskapen och förmågan att bearbeta och värdera statistik om sociala förhållanden mer generellt

Age-Related Olfactory Decline is Associated with the BDNF Val66met Polymorphism: Evidence from a Population-Based Study

The present study investigates the effect of the brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) val66met polymorphism on change in olfactory function in a large scale, longitudinal population-based sample (n = 836). The subjects were tested on a 13 item force-choice odor identification test on two test occasions over a 5-year-interval. Sex, education, health-related factors, and semantic ability were controlled for in the statistical analyses. Results showed an interaction effect of age and BDNF val66met on olfactory change, such that the magnitude of olfactory decline in the older age cohort (70–90 years old at baseline) was larger for the val homozygote carriers than for the met carriers. The older met carriers did not display larger age-related decline in olfactory function compared to the younger group. The BDNF val66met polymorphism did not affect the rate of decline in the younger age cohort (45–65 years). The findings are discussed in the light of the proposed roles of BDNF in neural development and maintenance

Body Odor Disgust Sensitivity Predicts Moral Harshness Toward Moral Violations of Purity

Detecting pathogen threats and avoiding disease is fundamental to human survival. The behavioral immune system (BIS) framework outlines a set of psychological functions that may have evolved for this purpose. Disgust is a core emotion that plays a pivotal role in the BIS, as it activates the behavioral avoidance motives that prevent people from being in contact with pathogens. To date, there has been little agreement on how disgust sensitivity might underlie moral judgments. Here, we investigated moral violations of “purity” (assumed to elicit disgust) and violations of “harm” (assumed to elicit anger). We hypothesized that individual differences in BIS-related traits would be associated with greater disgust (vs. anger) reactivity to, and greater condemnation of Purity (vs. Harm) violations. The study was pre-registered (https://osf.io/57nm8/). Participants (N = 632) rated scenarios concerning moral wrongness or inappropriateness and regarding disgust and anger. To measure individual differences in the activation of the BIS, we used our recently developed Body Odor Disgust Scale (BODS), a BIS-related trait measure that assesses individual differences in feeling disgusted by body odors. In line with our predictions, we found that scores on the BODS relate more strongly to affective reactions to Purity, as compared to Harm, violations. In addition, BODS relates more strongly to Moral condemnation than to perceived Inappropriateness of an action, and to the condemnation of Purity violations as compared to Harm violations. These results suggest that the BIS is involved in moral judgment, although to some extent this role seems to be specific for violations of “moral purity,” a response that might be rooted in disease avoidance. Data and scripts to analyze the data are available on the Open Science Framework (OSF) repository: https://osf.io/tk4x5/. Planned analyses are available at https://osf.io/x6g3u/