Sweden: Stockholm

Abstract

Sweden has for a long time been considered the paradigm of the successful European welfare state. Affluence, full employment and optimum social care were linked to each other almost as a matter of course. In the nineties the Swedish success formula seemed to be dead. Unemployment has increased sharply and all kinds of social services have come under pressure, according to OECD reports. Ground has also been lost in comparison to other European countries. Measured in terms of Gross National Product, Sweden dropped from third position on the European list in 1970 to eleventh position in 1991. At first glance the crisis started in the early nineties, but looking back the first signals of problems turn out to have been visible in the early eighties. The turbulence did not remain limited to economic indicators but, for instance, also resulted in the conservatives coming into power in 1991, after dominance by the social democrats of more than half a century.