When it comes to life standards in different countries of the world Sweden is always among the first ones to be mentioned in this context. Take any credible rating in this sphere and Sweden will be definitely among the leaders. For instance, one of the most referred to is the Index of life quality. In its 2015 edition, Sweden has ranked third according to the summed up comparison of purchasing power index, safety index, health care index, consumer price index, property price to income ratio, traffic commute time index and pollution index (Quality of Life Index for Country, 2015). What is the secret of this success? What is the recipe for the other states to follow to become as successful as Sweden is? This is very important to learn because a significant number of countries in the world, although possessing sufficient resources to grow, still lack the most expensive and crucial resource – experience. In order to try identify specific reasons why the Swedish welfare system is so successful this research paper will comprise two parts. The first one will examine the overall peculiarities of Swedish social welfare politics, i.e. characteristics inherent in every field of this type of policy. The second one will briefly dwell upon separate welfare programs and try to identify their specific components that lead to the success of such policies.
So what are the peculiarities of the Swedish welfare system that make it so specialy successful. First of all this is social orientation of the state politics. Among the scholars there has even been coined a specific term called “Scandinavian socialism” in order to designate the specific way Scandinavian countries, primarily Sweden as the first and the most successful (again, judging from the mentioned rating) to launch the model, chose and succeeded to build welfare states (McWhinney, 2013). Apparently, since there has been an entire concept of Scandinavian socialism elaborated the secret of Swedish success must be searched for within it. In order to learn the exact elements of Scandinavian socialism, let’s get down to the following specific maxims o the Swedish social policy which make “socialism” work.
The first among these is apparently the fact that the Swedish welfare system originated earlier than in any other state in the Western world, namely at the end of the 19th century. Back at the time when in the last decade of the 19th century the United States only began to witness the emergence of labor movement – the first and yet imperfect display of public striving towards a welfare state - Sweden had already legislatively provided for benefits and subsidies for the sick. In 1913 when first labor union were just emerging in the United States Sweden the Liberal Party of Sweden already managed to push through the parliamentary voting the National Pension Act targeted at providing social security for the elderly (Orfield, 2002). Therefore, one of the first prerequisites and main allies of the Swedish success in building the welfare state was time, as simple as that.
However time is a good ally only when you are balanced in approach since success likes stability. Therefore as the second feature it is worth to mention the balance between different public spheres Sweden has managed to maintain. A member of the Club of Rome, Swiss-Canadian-Ukrainian economist, sociologist and futurologist Bohdan Hawrylyshyn in his book “Towards More Effective Societies” pointed out that a state that wants to be successful in building a social democracy has to work in four directions. The first one is the full political freedom. The second one is economic prosperity and welfare. The third one is social security. Finally, the fourth and last one is the symbiosis of people with nature (Hawrylyshyn, 1980). In fact, when we think about it we can come to a conclusion that all of the four indicated elements are targeted at creating a social welfare model in the society of a given country. Since welfare system is not only social security but also freedom, primarily political and economic, and since being prosperous cannot be considered successful if achieved at the expense of the environment the welfare system truly comprises all of the four indicated fields. Now, using the index mentioned in the introduction one can see that Sweden has ranked very high in all the constituting components that were enumerated and that cover all four spheres.
Finally, there obviously are several factors inherent of the model of relations between the Swedish people and Swedish authorities that are in themselves very significant factors of the success of the Swedish welfare system. The first among the components I would like to mention is decentralization (Bergh, 111-113; Bergmark, 2006, 21). The thing is that specific welfare programs that will be elaborated upon below are accorded to the population on the municipal level rather than on the national level. In Sweden decentralization was the first stage of deregulation process that comprised three stages in total (Blomqvist, 2004, 145). And this is very clever given that it ensures greater diversification of ways of how various needs of the population are met (Ginsburg, Helen Lachs and Marguerite G. Rosenthal, 2006). For instance, we know that in Sweden, just as also Norway, Finland and Russia has a significant share of saami population in the north. AS everybody else in Sweden, representatives of this people are entitled to acquire education. Now, it is not hard to understand that to regulate education on municipal level so that everybody gets the best of it is far more effective than to try to elaborate some general rules imposed from the capital and which may ignore some peculiarities of certain groups of population.
However, decentralization demands local authorities have enough resource at their disposal to simultaneously be able to carry out their own politics and not depend financially on the center. That is why the second component is the taxing policy. The thing is that Sweden, along with other Scandinavian states is very well known for its high taxes (Ginsburg, Helen Lachs and Marguerite G. Rosenthal, 2006). This also makes these countries very expensive to live in. However, Swedish populations does not protest to give away much because they know why they are giving up on much of their share of their revenues – the system of redistribution of taxes into public expenditures is so effective in Sweden that these comparatively to other states great amount of money are spilled over into social security and welfare. Therefore, we come to a conclusion that something the contribution of which to the social welfare system in Sweden does not have to be underestimated is Swedish mentality – these people are ready to give away much to receive much (Steinmo, 15-17).
Now, what touches more precisely upon specific social welfare programs implemented in different elements of the social sphere.
Income distribution. Swedish distribution of income can be characterized as egalitarian. This is why Swedish society can boast the absence of the poor and very rich – the gap between the ones and the others is far smaller than in most other states (Bergmark, 2006, 27). This is achieved through taxing policy, social welfare services and support programs and leads to the stability of the society as a whole (Ginsburg, Helen Lachs and Marguerite G. Rosenthal, 2006). Existence of the wealthy and absence of the poor which Sweden seems to have achieved can be a good recipe for other nations.
Employment. The unemployment rate in Sweden is, probably, the lowest in the world – at the end of 1990s it was only at 2 to 3 percent, in the mid-2000s – about five percent, given the economic and, partially, political crisis that happened in the first half of the 2000s (Ginsburg, Helen Lachs and Marguerite G. Rosenthal, 2006). Full employment leads to more stable and bigger revenue to the budget which enables the authorities of Sweden to spend more on the social welfare programs (Steinmo, 20). At the same time unemployment insurance schemes are more than generous in Sweden which makes even those unsupported and jobless have a decent living (Andersen, 2007, 18).
Health and healthcare. To begin with, the best indicator of Swedish success in this area is life expectancy. Average life expectancy of men in this country is 77,9 years and for women – 82,4 years. This is about three years more for each than in the United States. Also, in the course of just one decade - from 1992 to 2002 – Sweden managed to diminish infant mortality by half and now it is at the lowest rate among European states. One of the recipes of Swedish success in healthcare must be the municipal responsibility for it (Bergh, 115). Also, hospital stays have been significantly decreased, therefore diversifying the homestay treatment and leading to the lesser number of beds needed at the hospitals (Ginsburg, Helen Lachs and Marguerite G. Rosenthal, 2006).
Parental leave. There are two things to outline here. First, egalitarian approach is also present in this sphere since fathers are more and more being involved into the bringing up their children, even on the legislative level. Secondly, social welfare programs in this field compensate the newly become parents their wages for thirteen months. By the way, it is currently debated to increase this time to fifteen months and to oblige each parent to take at least five months leave (now only one month leave is obligatory for men). Apart from that, mothers can take paid leaves before going into labor and also take up to two months every year to care about sick children (Ginsburg, Helen Lachs and Marguerite G. Rosenthal, 2006). All of this shows the extent to which Swedish society is adjusted to every possible challenge and life situation. No wonder that it leads to better life standards appreciation.
The above examples do not exhaust the list of social welfare benefits present in the Swedish model of social public policy. However, in this paper there has been taken an attempt not just to tell about but to explain what factors influence and add up to the formation of the social welfare system in Sweden as we know it. The model of population-government relations, including taxation and decentralization, covering the four indicated directions of state development as well as long-lasting experience must be the guarantees of the Swedish success and of this country’s being the good example for literally every other country in the world.
References
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