| The dissertation goes beyond the 'death of a model' debate that emerged in the 1990s to determine the effects of recent changes to the Swedish welfare state, particularly in the areas of childcare, parental leave and pensions. It argues that what has taken place in Sweden over the past two decades is a process of reregulation, led by the state in an attempt to adapt to the current neoliberal global economic paradigm, while still aiming to maintain the social democratic goals of equality and full employment.;In exploring the Swedish case, the dissertation confirms that states react differently to similar pressures, and demonstrates how important the state remains in terms of welfare state policy. The process of reregulation exposes how recent reforms have been state-led and how the state retains control over how to adapt neoliberalism within its own specific national context. It also explores how such processes are not gender-neutral, analyzing the importance of a state's dominant gender order in influencing the reregulation process, as well as the influence reregulation can have on gender relations in a given context.;What this study concludes is that the gendered effects of the reregulation process have been both positive and negative. Both childcare and parental leave have been significant factors in allowing men and women to better balance work and family, at the same time encouraging women's labour force participation and men's role in child-rearing. On the other hand, by taking the typical male career pattern as the norm, the pension reform of the 1990s punishes those who work part-time or who enter the labour force late or leave early, the majority of whom are women.;The project uses a combination of secondary sources, primary documents, and interviews with those who have been involved in, or who are critical of, recent welfare state reforms in Sweden. Interviewees included politicians, scholars, researchers, bureaucrats and former bureaucrats, union economists, journalists, consultants, and activists, many of whom were directly involved in the creation of the parental leave system or the pension reform, or who have taken part in government-appointed commissions on these issues. |
