Jon Kvist (born 6 January 1967) is a Danish researcher and author. He is a professor at the Institute of Society and Globalization, at the Roskilde University, as well as a member of the Nordic Centre of Excellence on Reassessing the Nordic Welfare Model. [1]
Kvist is the son of a teacher and a psychiatrist. He studied at the University of Odense in Denmark and at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. From 1998 to 2008, Kvist was a senior researcher for the Danish National Institute of Social Research. In 2002, Kvist co-founded ESPAnet, the European network of Social Policy Analysts, a group of academics who study European social policy. He was a member of its board until 2008.
He is currently a member of the editorial board of the Journal of European Social Policy.
Kvist was on the Expert Group on Welfare in an Independent Scotland set down by the Scottish Government 2013–2014.
Currently, Kvist is on the Danish Government Commission on Unemployment Insurance (Dagpengekommissionen) that is to analyse and recommend reform of the unemployment insurance system.
Kvist is also member of the new European Commission European Network on Social Policy.
Kvist has two children. [2]
The Swedish Social Democratic Party, formally the SwedishSocial Democratic Workers' Party, usually referred to as The Social Democrats, is a social democratic political party in Sweden. The party is member of the Progressive Alliance and the Party of European Socialists.
A welfare state is a form of government in which the state protects and promotes the economic and social well-being of its citizens, based upon the principles of equal opportunity, equitable distribution of wealth, and public responsibility for citizens unable to avail themselves of the minimal provisions for a good life.
Welfare spending is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specifically to social insurance programs which provide support only to those who have previously contributed, as opposed to social assistance programs which provide support on the basis of need alone. The International Labour Organization defines social security as covering support for those in old age, support for the maintenance of children, medical treatment, parental and sick leave, unemployment and disability benefits, and support for sufferers of occupational injury.
The Danish People's Party is a nationalist and right-wing populist political party in Denmark. It was formed in 1995 by former members of the Progress Party (FrP).
Anker Henrik Jørgensen was a Danish politician who served at various times as prime minister and foreign minister of Denmark. Between 1972 and 1982 he led five cabinets as prime minister. Jørgensen was president of the Nordic Council in 1986 and 1991.
The Swedish Trade Union Confederation, commonly referred to as LO, is a national trade union centre, an umbrella organisation for fourteen Swedish trade unions that organise mainly "blue-collar" workers. The Confederation, which gathers around 1.5 million employees out of Sweden's 10 million people population, was founded in 1898 by blue-collar unions on the initiative of the 1897 Scandinavian Labour Congress and the Swedish Social Democratic Party, which almost exclusively was made up by trade unions. In 2019 union density of Swedish blue-collar workers was 60%, a decline by seventeen percentage points since 2006 when blue-collar union density was 77%. A strong contributing factor was the considerably raised fees to union unemployment funds in January 2007 made by the new centre-right government.
Flexicurity is a welfare state model with a pro-active labour market policy. The term was first coined by the social democratic Prime Minister of Denmark Poul Nyrup Rasmussen in the 1990s.
Social welfare in Sweden is made up of several organizations and systems dealing with welfare. It is mostly funded by taxes, and executed by the public sector on all levels of government as well as private organizations. It can be separated into three parts falling under three different ministries. Social welfare is the responsibility of the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs. Education is the responsibility of the Ministry of Education and Research. The labour market is the responsibility of the Ministry of Employment.
George C. Peden is an emeritus professor of history at Stirling University, Scotland.
A social welfare model is a system of social welfare provision and its accompanying value system. It usually involves social policies that affect the welfare of a country's citizens within the framework of a market or mixed economy.
Unemployment benefits in Sweden are payments made by the state or other authorized bodies to unemployed people. They can be divided into a voluntary scheme with income-related compensation up to a certain level, or a comprehensive scheme that provides a lower level of basic support.
The Nordic agrarian parties, also referred to as Scandinavian agrarian parties or agrarian liberal parties, are agrarian political parties that belong to a political tradition particular to the Nordic countries. Positioning themselves in the centre of the political spectrum, but fulfilling roles distinctive to Nordic countries, they remain hard to classify by conventional political ideology.
The Nordic model comprises the economic and social policies as well as typical cultural practices common in the Nordic countries. This includes a comprehensive welfare state and multi-level collective bargaining based on the economic foundations of social corporatism, and a commitment to private ownership within a market-based mixed economy – with Norway being a partial exception due to a large number of state-owned enterprises and state ownership in publicly listed firms.
The Ghent system is the name given to an arrangement in some countries whereby the main responsibility for welfare payments, especially unemployment benefits, is held by trade unions rather than a government agency. The system is named after the city of Ghent, Belgium, where it was first implemented. It is the predominant form of unemployment benefit in Denmark, Finland, Iceland and Sweden. Belgium has a hybrid or "quasi-Ghent" system, in which the government also plays a significant role in distributing benefits. In all of the above countries, unemployment funds held by unions or labour federations are regulated and/or partly subsidised by the national government concerned.
The economy of Sweden is a highly developed export-oriented economy, aided by timber, hydropower, and iron ore. These constitute the resource base of an economy oriented toward foreign trade. The main industries include motor vehicles, telecommunications, pharmaceuticals, industrial machines, precision equipment, chemical goods, home goods and appliances, forestry, iron, and steel. Traditionally, Sweden relied on a modern agricultural economy that employed over half the domestic workforce. Today Sweden further develops engineering, mine, steel, and pulp industries, which are competitive internationally, as evidenced by companies such as Ericsson, ASEA/ABB, SKF, Alfa Laval, AGA, and Dyno Nobel.
The European social model is a concept that emerged in the discussion of economic globalization and typically contrasts the degree of employment regulation and social protection in European countries to conditions in the United States. It is commonly cited in policy debates in the European Union, including by representatives of both labour unions and employers, to connote broadly "the conviction that economic progress and social progress are inseparable" and that "[c]ompetitiveness and solidarity have both been taken into account in building a successful Europe for the future".
Social security or welfare in Finland is very comprehensive compared to what almost all other countries provide. In the late 1980s, Finland had one of the world's most advanced welfare systems, which guaranteed decent living conditions to all Finns. Created almost entirely during the first three decades after World War II, the social security system was an outgrowth of the traditional Nordic belief that the state is not inherently hostile to the well-being of its citizens and can intervene benevolently on their behalf. According to some social historians, the basis of this belief was a relatively benign history that had allowed the gradual emergence of a free and independent peasantry in the Nordic countries and had curtailed the dominance of the nobility and the subsequent formation of a powerful right wing. Finland's history was harsher than the histories of the other Nordic countries but didn't prevent the country from following their path of social development.
Bjørn Hvinden is a Norwegian sociologist. He is a research professor and managing director of Norwegian Social Research.
Christian Albrekt Larsen is a Danish professor employed at Aalborg University, where he is involved in comparative welfare studies. He works on a daily basis at the CENTRE FOR COMPARATIVE WELFARE STUDIES (CCWS).
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Europe consisting of the Jutland Peninsula and numerous islands. Typically, Denmark has had relatively low unemployment rates. Currently, Denmark has generous unemployment benefits in the form of private insurance funds. Unemployment benefits are typically payments made by the state or other authorized actors to unemployed persons.