1. No category

PUBLISHED BY THE SWEDISH COUNCIL FOR WORKING LIFE AND SOCIAL RESEARCH, MARCH 2002, NO. 1
SKr 184 million for research
Some 700 outline proposals for research
projects were submitted to FAS in 2001. Slightly
less than one-third of these were accepted by
FAS, and, accordingly, 219 full proposals were
received that year.
In November 2001, the FAS board approved
123 projects. This means a 56 per cent success
rate. However, when compared to the number
of outline proposals, the success rate is reduced
to 17 per cent.
The table below shows the grants awarded
according to FAS’ main areas of responsibility.
all proposals had a female principal investigator.
The female success rate was 51 per cent,
compared to 69 per cent for male principal
investigators. However, when you look at the
amounts applied for and awarded, a slightly
different picture emerges. As a group, males
received 32 per cent of the amount they had
applied for whereas women received 35 per
cent.
In the current and coming issues of our
Newsletter, we will present a selection of these
research projects to our readers. For additional
information, please contact the principal
investigator.
If you look at the gender pattern, 34 per cent of
Main area of research
Full proposals
Total amount
applied for, MSkr
Accepted
Total amount
awarded, MSkr
Occupational Safety and Health
46
109
28
36
Work Organisation
46
137
23
44
Labour Market Issues
31
72
15
24
Public Health
44
128
27
37
Social Policy and Social Insurance
25
71
16
23
Social Welfare
27
55
14
20
219
572
123
184
Total
Swedish Research Links
Swedish Research Links is a SIDA/Sarec programme designed to promote research partnerships in areas of common interest between
researchers in Sweden and more resource-heavy
developing countries in Asia, the Middle East,
and North Africa. The programme is also
intended to help ensure that the internationalisation of Swedish research also includes
developing countries.
The Links programme is based on the experience gained from the programme established in
1999 by SIDA/Sarec and the South African
National Research Foundation to promote high
quality, relevant research and the exchange of
know-how and technology of common interest,
and to boost the research capacity of the
historically underprivileged milieus. The South
African programme finances a number of
partnerships between Swedish and South
African researchers, many of which relate to
issues within the FAS sphere of responsibility.
The Links programme will be announced for the
first time in March 2002. The final application
date for 2003 for the South African programme
is 2nd April 2002.
Applications to the programmes must be based
on a shared research interest and be jointly
formulated. The programme can cover the
added costs entailed by the research partnership
but not salary overheads or other basic
financing. Grants may be sought for a three year
period with the option of applying for financing
for a fourth year.
The contact persons at SIDA for Swedish
Research Links and the South African project
are Paula Mählck, e-mail <paula.mahlck
Is it more expensive to be poor?
@sida.se>, and Marianne von Malmborg, e-mail
<[email protected]>,
respectively.
Is it relatively more expensive to be poor or to
live in modest circumstances? The question is
raised by Professor Tapio Salonen and Ph.D.student Torbjörn Hjort at the University of
Lund in a study of expense-increasing hindrances or barriers faced by low income families
with children in their role as consumers.
Employment rights during a transfer
of undertakings
Sweden joining the European Union in 1995
resulted in certain aspects of Swedish labour law
being changed to bring it into line with
Community law. One pronounced difference lies
in the changes made to the Swedish Security of
Employment Act and the Swedish CoDetermination Act to ensure that the rules
correspond to the EU’s Transfer of Undertakings
Directive.
Consumption patterns and their associated
conditions for households have changed during
the 1900s, in relation both to public sector
welfare solutions and to market-based arenas.
Previous Swedish research into economically
vulnerable groups has primarily focused on the
relationship with public sector welfare systems
and the way in which income levels have
changed for these groups. There is, however,
little research that explicitly highlights the
consumption dimension in relation to economic
vulnerability from a household perspective. As a
result, knowledge of the effects of consumption
conditions on redistribution policy is scant.
This project is designed to clarify the import and
consequences of the changes to the Swedish
provisions governing employment rights in
conjunction with transfers of undertakings that
ensue from the implementation of the Transfer
of Undertakings Directive. The starting point is
jurisprudence. Hence it entails a review of legal
texts, the legislative history of enactments, and
the comprehensive body of case law extant from
the European Court and the Swedish Labour
Court in order to determine what constitutes
applicable law in this respect. The extent to
which the provisions of the Transfer of
Undertakings Directive have entailed an increase
in security of employment for Swedish
employees is then discussed on the basis of the
review.
The aim is not to produce a characterisation of
the poor’s consumption patterns/behaviour, but
rather, to investigate and illuminate the conditions that can render consumption more expensive or more difficult. The study focuses on the
relationship between households and the goods
and services market in a broad sense. The role
of consumption for economically vulnerable
groups in an affluent society is also interpreted
from a sociology of consumption perspective.
The study comprises two parts: an empirical
study of the way in which expense-increasing
mechanisms affect households, and an
interview-based survey of the way in which
households handle these problems. The results
of the survey will, furthermore, be related to
and analysed on the basis of statistical material
at a macro level.
The project will focus on the aspect concerned
with jurisprudence and substantive law. Initially,
however, the relationship between national law
and EU law with regard to both the legislator’s
law-making discretion and the courts’ judicial
and application discretion will be looked into.
These starting points are intended to lay the
foundations for the analysis and conclusion with
regard to the extent to which the Transfer of
Undertakings Directive affects Swedish working
life and as to whether security of employment
has been strengthened as a result of the new
rules.
Further information:
Professor Tapio Salonen, School of Social
Work, Lund University.
E-mail <[email protected]>.
Further information:
Who creates my identity?
Professor Birgitta Nyström, Law Dept, Lund
University.
E-mail <birgitta.nystrom@@jur.lu.se>.
Identity development among children and
young people with disabilities
The basis for the four sub-studies of this project
is that identity is developed through interaction
between the individual and those closest to them
against a background of dominating social and
cultural perceptions of disabilities. Interviews
2
and surveys will by conducted with disabled
children, young people and professional
assistants.
mobility patterns within and between
workplaces. What are the family-related and
labor market-related processes that reduce
women’s opportunities to enter favorable career
paths and, thereby, achieve higher wages?
In sub-study no. 1 the structure of the social
network among physically disabled children is
compared with the networks of children and
young people without physical disabilities. Is
there a micro-system within the networks of
physically disabled children and young people
that is not present among other children and
young people? The intensity of the contacts, the
presence of practical and emotional support as
well as feedback are described, as are activities
the children and young people usually engage in
together.
Secondly, men’s and women’s differential wage
mobility patterns will be analyzed in the light of
organizational or workplace-specific factors.
How is the gender wage differential dynamic
affected by organizational gender segregation
and gender inequality in access to power
structures and positions of authority in work
organizations?
The analyses are based upon longitudinal data
from the Swedish Standard of Living Surveys
(LNU) and related register data material
including a large amount of information on
approximately 900,000 employees and their
employing organizations during the period
1987–1995.
Sub-study no. 2 explores how young people
have been treated by friends, adults and others
in society, such as teachers, people in the street,
people they meet during cinema visits or other
leisure activities, and what is their perception of
this treatment? How have the young people
themselves acted in situations where they have
encountered varying attitudes?
Further information:
Mia Hultin, Research Fellow in Sociology,
Swedish Institute for Social Research (SOFI).
E-mail <[email protected]>.
The purpose of sub-study no. 3 is to understand
how the identities of disabled young people are
formed through own body experiences — the
possibilities and limitations of the body — as
well as the demands that are made on them to
take responsibility for their own body and to
attain an ideal body. An additional aim is to
determine how young people are influenced by
social and cultural norms surrounding the
“normal” and the ideal body.
Motor exhaust, particles and
myocardial infarction or lung cancer
More than 80,000 people in Sweden are currently exposed to exhaust from diesel-powered
vehicles during their work. Diesel vehicles are
the main source of fine particles in urban air.
Current studies indicate that diesel exhaust and/
or particles may cause lung cancer at levels well
below the present occupational threshold limits,
and that the risk of myocardial infarction may
also be increased. Very little is known about
dose-response relationships.
The last sub-study raises the following questions.What opportunities and obstacles do
disabled young people see in terms of future
occupational choices and work tasks, and on
what experiences do they base these perceptions? What roles do friends, adults and
professional assistants play in how their
perceptions are formed?
A study at the Dept of Occupational and
Environmental Health, Stockholm Centre of
Public Health, will investigate and quantify the
risk of lung cancer and myocardial infarction in
relation to exposure to diesel exhaust and
particles. This is done by development of
measurement-based assessments of present and
historical exposure levels to indicators of motor
exhaust and particles in occupational environments.
Further information:
Prof. Rafael Lindqvist, Dept of Sociology, Umeå
University.
E-mail <[email protected]>.
Wage mobility in the labor market
This study aims to analyze the dynamic
processes that generate and sustain gender wage
differentials over time.
Two recently completed population-based casereferent studies of lung cancer and myocardial
infarction in Stockholm County provide data on
occupations, work tasks, smoking habits,
domiciles etc. for 1,042 lung cancer cases, 1,335
Firstly, wage mobility will be analyzed in
relation to men’s and women’s different job
3
cases of myocardial infarction and more than
4,000 control subjects from the general
population. The exposure to particles and diesel
exhaust is assessed by linking these persons’
work histories to newly developed
measurement-based exposure assessment.
About 120 personal samples of the exposure to
elemental carbon, particles (PM2,5 and
PM1,0), and nitrogen dioxide are taken in
environments representative of present and
previous work conditions in diesel exhaustexposed occupations in Stockholm. Reconstruction of some older work conditions and
modelling make it possible to assess the previous
exposure in earlier work environments. The risk
of lung cancer and myocardial infarction is
calculated in relation to the dose of particles
and diesel exhaust. Several dose indices are
computed like cumulative dose, also
incorporating time-windows, lag and latency.
Present data on smoking habits, radon in
dwellings, general air pollution levels, obesity,
hypertension etc. is used for control of potential
confounding.
Further information:
Associate Professor Per Gustavsson, Dept of
Occupational and Environmental Health,
Stockholm Centre of Public Health, Stockholm
County Council.
E-mail <[email protected]>.
Remembering loss and sharing grief
In October 1998 a fire at the Macedonian
Association’s premises in Gothenburg, where a
discotheque had been organised, claimed the
lives of 63 young people and more than 200
were injured. The challenge facing the bereaved
in this catastrophe, is in finding a means of
expression which outwardly signifies the
profundity and pain of their shared experiences.
In her research project, Docent Abby Peterson at
the University of Gothenburg is studying these
means not as therapeutic practices for assuaging
grief, but as expressive practices through which
highly individual and personal feelings are
collectively constructed and demonstrated.
Death is an emotional experience, and the ways
bereavement is ritually organised relates to the
performative aspects of collective mourning and
remembrance as well as the shared experiences
of grief and loss. Subsequently, the study will
focus upon how these ritual performances act as
ways of constructing and reconstructing a sense
of community.
The very idea of performance implies that all
memorial practice is bound to a rhetoric of
participation. The study will analyse those
actions of individuals and groups intended to
invoke memories of the tragic event and the
individuals who lost their lives in the fire.
Ritualised performances of deep personal and
societal loss are often carried out in a specific
setting which serves as a frame for the performances. The settings of memorial performances,
together with the stage and “props” for these
performances, i.e. the “artefacts of loss”, will be
analysed. And while the symbolic context of the
memorial site itself will be analysed, emphasis
will be placed upon the logic of performance,
which governs the encounters between a will-toremember and the claims on the site.
The study is explorative and will rely upon
empirical sources. Interviews will be conducted
among members of the Fire Victim Relatives’
Association and among young people who
survived the fire or participated in the memorial
events. Empirical materials will be collected
through participant observations of memorial
events and through various documents produced
by survivors and relatives of victims in
conjunction with these memorial events; for
example, song texts, poems, and articles.
Artefacts from the fire and its aftermath are
another source together with a collation of the
media coverage of these memorial events.
Further information:
Docent Abby Peterson, Dept of Sociology,
Göteborg University.
E-mail <[email protected]>.
Postal address Box 2220, SE-103 15 Stockholm Visiting address Birger Jarls torg 5, Riddarholmen
Phone +46 8 775 40 70 Telefax +46 8 775 40 75 E-mail [email protected] Internet www.fas.forskning.se
Editor Jan Jerring E-mail [email protected] April 2002