9058009784

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Hartmann. Sweden

3. The Current Struciure of the Swedish Labour Market

In accordance with the societal goal of secured employment for everybody, Sweden shows the highest global labour force participation rates. From a population of 8.3 million inhabitants, 4.4 millions were in the labour force in 1985 and of the age group 16-74 76.6 X of men and 68.1 X of women were part of the labour force (SCB 1985:2). But the increase of persons ac-tive on the labour market has not been followed by a simultaneous increase in working hours. On the contrary. Sweden shows a deciine in yearly working hours by 6x between 1970 and 1980, while the number of em-ployed people rosę by 10X during the same period.

The reasonfor this development has to be seen in a variety of reforms in-troduced during the 1970s and the opening of the Swedish labour market for part-time employment. Since 1978 the minimum holiday period is 5 weeks, there is the right for paid parental leave of 1 year, paid leave in case of a sick chiid up to 60 days per child and year, a legał right to reduce the work of parents to 75X without remuneration. a legał right for unpaid leave in case of further education and various laws regulating the right of leave for political and union engagements. On the whole, the dominating cpncept of full-time employment - 40 hours a week during the year over the active life-span - has been eroded. Mainly women engage in part-time employment, on average 31.5 h/weekly in 1984, but even men show a de-cline in working-hours and shorter spans of participation during working-life.

Also changes in the economic structure, e.g. a greater variation in produc-tion techniques or the liberalization of shops' opening-hours during the 1970s created the ground for a growth of part-time employment. Unions often were reluctant to accept part-time during evenings and weekends, but especially young women with children and students found it attractive to take on these jobs which paid up to 100X morę than normal employment. Thus, concentrated shift-work during the weekend may pay as much as 5 days normal work during the week.

Part-time work, reduced weekly working-hours, prolonged vacation peri-ods and the right to paid and unpaid leave for various reasons coincide very well with the cultural habit of Swedes to maintain a strong link to the informal or private economy. Hunting, fishing, berry-picking and gardening considerably contribute to the Swedes' daily consumption and as it is a tra-dition to build cottages by oneself, a large part of the population spends its leisure-time in a very productive way. (Ingelstam, 1979)