IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp3248.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Sweden's Pensioners: How They Have Fared in the Roller Coaster Ride through the Past Decade and a Half of Deep Recession and Economic Exuberance

Author

Listed:
  • Gustafsson, Björn Anders

    (Göteborg University)

  • Johansson, Mats

    (Institute for Futures Studies, Stockholm)

  • Palmer, Edward

    (Uppsala University)

Abstract

This study analyses the development of the economic well-being of the elderly in Sweden since 1990 – a period characterized by increased influence from the financial market and extreme economic events – using data from the Household Income Survey. The elderly were not isolated as pensions were cut, full indexation abandoned and taxes increased during Sweden’s deep recession in the 1990s. Instead, relatively, pensioners fared better than the working age population. On the other hand, poverty increased in absolute terms. In contrast in the following years of rapid economic growth, the growth in the income of the pensioners fell behind that of workers and relative poverty increased. The analysis shows that the limited resources of many of the elderly put them close to a socially interesting poverty line. Income inequality among the elderly has increased with an increase in the importance of capital income for the better off among the elderly, with a clear tendency towards delineation between the better and worse off, which we conclude has implications for public expenditures for the elderly. Overall, poverty among the elderly in Sweden remains low in an international perspective and our analysis leads us to conclude that the Swedish welfare state has maintained its resilience.

Suggested Citation

  • Gustafsson, Björn Anders & Johansson, Mats & Palmer, Edward, 2007. "Sweden's Pensioners: How They Have Fared in the Roller Coaster Ride through the Past Decade and a Half of Deep Recession and Economic Exuberance," IZA Discussion Papers 3248, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3248
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp3248.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael Förster, 2000. "Trends and Driving Factors in Income Distribution and Poverty in the OECD Area," OECD Labour Market and Social Policy Occasional Papers 42, OECD Publishing.
    2. Tony Atkinson & Bea Cantillon & Eric Marlier & Brian Nolan, 2002. "Indicators for Social Inclusion," Politica economica, Società editrice il Mulino, issue 1, pages 7-28.
    3. Graham Pyatt & Chau-nan Chen & John Fei, 1980. "The Distribution of Income by Factor Components," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 95(3), pages 451-473.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Franz F. Eiffe & Karin Heitzmann, 2006. "Armut im Kontext reicher Staaten: zur wissenschaftlichen Operationalisierung eines normativen Begriffs," Vierteljahrshefte zur Wirtschaftsforschung / Quarterly Journal of Economic Research, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research, vol. 75(1), pages 43-57.
    2. Salvatore Morelli & Timothy Smeeding & Jeffrey Thompson, 2014. "Post-1970 Trends in Within-Country Inequality and Poverty: Rich and Middle Income Countries," CSEF Working Papers 356, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    3. Timothy Smeeding, 2006. "Poor People in Rich Nations: The United States in Comparative Perspective," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 20(1), pages 69-90, Winter.
    4. M. Asghar ZaidiKlaas de Vos & CentER Applied Research & Tilburg University & The Netherlands, 2002. "Income Mobility of the Elderly in Great Britain and The Netherlands: A Comparative Investigation," Economics Series Working Papers 107, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    5. Duclos, Jean-Yves & Araar, Abdelkrim & Giles, John, 2010. "Chronic and transient poverty: Measurement and estimation, with evidence from China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(2), pages 266-277, March.
    6. Manos Matsaganis & Chrysa Leventi, 2011. "The distributional impact of the crisis in Greece," DEOS Working Papers 1124, Athens University of Economics and Business.
    7. Taylor, J. Edward, 1992. "Remittances and inequality reconsidered: Direct, indirect, and intertemporal effects," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 14(2), pages 187-208, April.
    8. Qiuqiong Huang & David Dawe & Scott Rozelle & Jikun Huang & Jinxia Wang, 2005. "Irrigation, poverty and inequality in rural China," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 49(2), pages 159-175, June.
    9. Menon Martina & Perali Federico & Veronesi Marcella, 2017. "“Leaving No Child Behind:” Preferences for Social Inclusion and Altruism," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 17(3), pages 1-19, July.
    10. Sabina Alkire & Maria Emma Santos, 2010. "Acute Multidimensional Poverty: A New Index for Developing Countries," Human Development Research Papers (2009 to present) HDRP-2010-11, Human Development Report Office (HDRO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
    11. Alkire, Sabina & Santos, Maria Emma, 2014. "Measuring Acute Poverty in the Developing World: Robustness and Scope of the Multidimensional Poverty Index," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 251-274.
    12. Vani K. Borooah & Paddy Hillyard & Mike Tomlinson, 2006. "Equity‐Sensitive Indicators Of Living Standards With An Application To Northern Ireland," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 53(5), pages 616-635, November.
    13. McBride, William D., 1997. "Change in U.S. Livestock Production, 1969-92," Agricultural Economic Reports 262047, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    14. Wei Su & Gianni Betti & Baris Ucar, 2020. "Longitudinal measures of fuzzy poverty: a focus on Czechia, Hungary and Poland after the crisis," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 54(1), pages 27-41, February.
    15. Vincent Hildebrand & Philippe Kerm, 2009. "Income inequality and self-rated health status: Evidence from the european community household panel," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 46(4), pages 805-825, November.
    16. Espinoza-Delgado, José & López-Laborda, Julio, 2017. "Nicaragua: evolución de la pobreza multidimensional, 2001-2009," Revista CEPAL, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL), April.
    17. Bea Cantillon, 2010. "Disambiguating Lisbon. Growth, Employment and Social Inclusion in the Investment State," Working Papers 1007, Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp.
    18. Brandolini, Andrea & Micklewright, John, 2020. "Tony Atkinson's New Book, Measuring Poverty around the World: Some Further Reflections," IZA Discussion Papers 12890, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    19. Sabina Alkire & Suman Seth, 2013. "Selecting a Targeting Method to Identify BPL Households in India," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 112(2), pages 417-446, June.
    20. H. Xavier Jara & Erik Schokkaert, 2017. "Putting measures of individual well-being to use for ex-ante policy evaluation," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 15(4), pages 421-440, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    income inequality; poverty; income; pensions; Sweden;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • H55 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Social Security and Public Pensions
    • I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty
    • J14 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of the Elderly; Economics of the Handicapped; Non-Labor Market Discrimination

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3248. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.