Unions, insurance and changing welfare states: The emergence of obligatory complementary income insurance in Sweden
Abstract
How do unions who support universal welfare such as public employment
insurance reason when they introduce private solutions such as obligatory
complementary income insurance (OCII)? Unions are important actors in shaping the
welfare model. Their actions and arguments tell a lot about how and why welfare state
changes take place. In this paper, we seek answers to how the unions have acted and
argued on OCII, how these actions and arguments have changed over time and
whether there are differences across unions within the same confederation and across
different confederations. The material includes congressional minutes and other
internal documents for the period 2000–2020. Further, a number of newspapers and
union magazines are studied. What we find and systematise is a myriad of arguments
for and against OCII, some of them referring to the eroded public unemployment
insurance and others pointing towards sharp competition between unions to keep or to
recruit new members.
View/ Open
Date
2022-01Author
Hamark, Jesper
Lapidus, John
Keywords
Unions
public unemployment insurance
obligatory complementary income insurance
welfare models
Swedish welfare model
Publication type
report
ISSN
1653-1000
Series/Report no.
Göteborg Papers in Economic History
29
Language
eng