In this article, we use population-based administrative data and multichannel sequence analysis to investigate the trajectories of single mothers in Norway who had a child while unpartnered in 1993, ...2001 and 2008. Our observation period is from 1994 to 2015. This period covers several structural transformations in Norwegian society and changes in family policies and welfare policies concerning single mothers. Furthermore, the period saw the growth of alternatives to the nuclear family as the prevailing normative ideal. Our findings demonstrate both complexity and heterogeneity among single mothers and their trajectories. Even so, the population of this group of single mothers is both younger and have lower education than the comparable population of non-single mothers. Nearly half of the single mothers followed trajectories characterized by strong labour market integration and family re-establishment. The other half followed more precarious trajectories characterized by unemployment and health related benefits. Importantly, age and life stage have strong implications for the labour market and family trajectories. Thus, early parenthood combined with leaving school early increases the probability of following precarious trajectories. The results further suggest that both economic cycles and changing welfare state framework is of great importance for single mother trajectories.
Internet/web‐based forms of communication have increasingly been implemented by welfare agencies. However, there have been few studies of the experiences of welfare service users and the consequences ...of new technology for welfare service users. To what extent is the new technology adopted by the Norwegian Welfare and Labour Organization (NAV) used, and how do the users apply and experience the new possibilities? Do screen‐to‐screen encounters replace face‐to‐face encounters, and is this trend affected by age, gender, education or type of benefit? To answer these questions, we combine survey data, short‐term fieldwork in welfare reception areas and qualitative interviews with people receiving health and work‐related benefits. Our study indicates that screen‐to‐screen interaction in general does not replace face‐to‐face encounters, as many face‐to‐face encounters are related to screen communication. However, digital competence combined with life circumstances appears to be the source of a new divide between welfare service users.
In many European countries, cohabitation has become a prevailing practice. Norway is one of the countries leading this trend; cohabitation before marriage is the norm and a majority of couples become ...parents before they (eventually) marry. This article explores the meaning of cohabitation for Norwegian couples today through a qualitative analysis of interviews with 17 urban, heterosexual couples. As the trend towards increased cohabitation has emerged so strongly in Norway, such analysis may provide important insights into the possible implications of more widespread cohabitation in Europe. Why is cohabitation so attractive to young Norwegians today? Why do most couples postpone marriage until after they have children? The main finding is that cohabitation in this context is understood as acting according to important norms about intimate relationships. Cohabitation is a way of dealing with the complexity of attitudes towards love and relationships in late modernity. The option of living together outside marriage makes it possible for couples to be sensible (not committing themselves ‘too much’) as well as living together when they want to develop a relationship and are ‘in love’.
"Post-war expansion of the welfare state is one of the most central changes in Norwegian society today and is often a topic in public debate. When certain conceptions about the welfare state are ...developed and they are no longer based on systematic analyses but rather ideas and attitudes, they can turn into myths. However, to be termed myths requires documentation, and here social research plays an important role. This book rejects and elaborates central myths in the public debate about the welfare state. The book is structured as an anthology, written by six welfare sociologists at the University of Bergen. The first article introduces the history of The Myth of the Welfare State, a book published by Pax in 1970, then revised a few years later, and with a follow-up version in 1995, 25 years after that. The book became a flaming light within the social policy debate, because it criticized the welfare state for not solving the problem of poverty. Although this problem, relatively seen, is reduced, the following five articles show that, within the framework of the welfare state, there is room for new important critical discussions. One myth focuses on the idea that a combination of a comprehensive state and an active civil society with much voluntary work is not possible. Another concerns the idea that welfare results in dependency. A third is about the “Elder Boom”. A fourth concerns single mothers and assumes that these unlawfully try to get access to welfare. And finally, the last discusses the ideas that crime should result in punishment and “prison pain”. Together, the articles are a contribution to make the debate about the welfare state richer and more dynamic."
"Utbyggingen av velferdsstaten i etterkrigstiden hører til en av de mest sentrale endringer i det norske samfunn, og er ofte et tema i den offentlige debatt. Når bestemte forestillinger om velferdsstaten utvikles og de ikke lenger bygger på systematiske analyser, men på ideer og holdninger, kan de bli til myter. At det er snakk om myter, må imidlertid dokumenteres, og her spiller samfunnsforskningen en viktig rolle. Denne boken tilbakeviser og nyanserer sentrale myter i den offentlige debatt om velferdsstaten. Boken er bygget opp som en antologi, skrevet av seks velferdssosiologer fra Universitetet i Bergen. Den første artikkelen gir en innføring i historien om Myten om velferdsstaten, en bok utgitt av Pax i 1970, siden revidert noen år etter og med en oppfølger i 1995, 25 år etter. Boken ble en brannfakkel i den sosialpolitiske debatt, fordi den kritiserte velferdsstaten for ikke å håndtere fattigdomsproblemet. Selv om dette problemet, relativt sett, er redusert, utgjør de etterfølgende artiklene om fem aktuelle velferdsmyter en argumentasjon for, at det, innenfor velferdsstatens rammer, er rom for nye viktige kritiske diskusjoner. Én myte handler om at en sterk stat ikke kan forenes med et aktivt samfunn med stor grad av frivillighet. En annen handler om at velferd skaper avhengighet. En tredje handler om eldrebølgen. En fjerde handler om at alenemødre antas å lure til seg velferd. Og endelig handler en siste myte om at kriminalitet må møtes med straff og ‘fengselspine’. Artiklene er samlet sett et bidrag til å gjøre debatten om velferdsstaten rikere og mer dynamisk."
The main objective of this article is to explore the institutionalization of cohabitation that occurred in Norwegian law in the period 1972-2010. From being (officially) illegal until 1972, ...cohabitation in its contemporary form has become majority practice, a child-rearing institution, as well as recognized in law in ways that blur the differences between cohabitation and marriage. Although cohabitation is common in many European countries, Norway is one of the few to have gone full circle. This article focuses on the changes in politicians' ideas and norms regarding intimate relationships during this period. The empirical analysis is based on political documents and debates in the Norwegian parliament about cohabitation, marriage, single motherhood and the family.
Everyday interaction at the front-line Lundberg, Kjetil G.; Syltevik, Liv Johanne
Journal of organizational ethnography,
07/2016, Volume:
5, Issue:
2
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to provide a sociological analysis of everyday interaction on the physical front line of the Norwegian welfare state.
Design/methodology/approach
– The data are ...from a short-term ethnographic study in the reception/waiting rooms of three local welfare offices. These are important sites for access to benefits and services. The focus is on the situational and interactional aspects: how do people behave and interact with fellow visitors as well as with front line staff in this institutional context? For the analysis, Goffman’s conceptual framework on behaviour in public places is combined with concepts from a theory of access to welfare benefits.
Findings
– The analysis shows how people fill these spaces with different activities, and how they are characterized by a particular type of welfare “officialdom”, boundary work and the handling of welfare stigma. Everyday interaction on the front line gives insights into the tensions in an all-in-one welfare bureaucracy and into the implementation of digitalization. The paper concludes that “old” and “new” tensions are expressed and managed at the front line, and suggests that more attention be paid to the new barriers that are developing.
Originality/value
– The study contributes an ethnographic approach to a seldom studied part of welfare administration. The waiting rooms in the Norwegian welfare organization are actualized as a social arena influenced by new trends in public administration: one-stop shops, a new heterogeneity, activation policies and digitalization processes.
Everyday interaction at the front-line Lundberg, Kjetil G; Syltevik, Liv Johanne
Journal of organizational ethnography,
07/2016, Volume:
5, Issue:
2
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to provide a sociological analysis of everyday interaction on the physical front line of the Norwegian welfare state.
Design/methodology/approach
– The data are ...from a short-term ethnographic study in the reception/waiting rooms of three local welfare offices. These are important sites for access to benefits and services. The focus is on the situational and interactional aspects: how do people behave and interact with fellow visitors as well as with front line staff in this institutional context? For the analysis, Goffman’s conceptual framework on behaviour in public places is combined with concepts from a theory of access to welfare benefits.
Findings
– The analysis shows how people fill these spaces with different activities, and how they are characterized by a particular type of welfare “officialdom”, boundary work and the handling of welfare stigma. Everyday interaction on the front line gives insights into the tensions in an all-in-one welfare bureaucracy and into the implementation of digitalization. The paper concludes that “old” and “new” tensions are expressed and managed at the front line, and suggests that more attention be paid to the new barriers that are developing.
Originality/value
– The study contributes an ethnographic approach to a seldom studied part of welfare administration. The waiting rooms in the Norwegian welfare organization are actualized as a social arena influenced by new trends in public administration: one-stop shops, a new heterogeneity, activation policies and digitalization processes.
PDF
