We conducted a vignette experiment involving 470 Norwegian front-line workers to investigate whether their decisions to sanction non-compliance of activation requirements varied with the ethnicity of the welfare claimant. This is the first vignette experiment on ethnic discrimination in the administration of activation programmes in Europe. The study shows that front-line workers did not sanction claimants with a North African name more often than claimants with a native Norwegian name. However, among front-line workers who had experience with the relevant activation programme, a male claimant with a North African name was sanctioned less often than a male claimant with a native Norwegian name. Thus, we find some degree of reverse discrimination on the part of experienced front-line workers. This finding is contrary to a similar US vignette experiment that detected discrimination (not reverse discrimination) with regard to claimants with an ethnic minority name. The most likely explanation for the difference concerns the different institutionalcultural contexts within which Norwegian and US social policy programmes operate.
BackgroundDifferences in mortality with regard to socioeconomic status have widened in recent decades in many European countries, including Norway. A rapid upsurge of immigration to Norway has occurred since the 1990s. The article investigates the impact of immigration on educational mortality differences among adults in Norway.MethodsTwo linked register-based data sets are analyzed; the first consists of all registered inhabitants aged 20–69 in Norway January 1, 1993 (2.6 millions), and the second of all registered inhabitants aged 20–69 as of January 1, 2008 (2.8 millions). Deaths 1993–1996 and 2008–2011, respectively, immigrant status, and other background information are available in the data. Mortality is examined by Cox regression analyses and by estimations of age-adjusted deaths per 100,000 personyears.ResultsBoth relative and absolute educational inequality in mortality increased from the 1993–1996 period to 2008–2011, but overall mortality levels went down during these years. Immigrants in general, and almost all the analyzed immigrant subcategories, had lower mortality than the native majority. This was due to comparatively low mortality among lower educated immigrants, while mortality among higher educated immigrants was similar to the mortality level of highly educated natives.ConclusionsThe widening of educational inequality in mortality during the 1990s and 2000s in Norway was not due to immigration. Immigration rather contributed to slightly lower overall mortality in the population and a less steep educational gradient in mortality.
Professor, Høgskolen i Oslo og Akershus, Fakultet for samfunnsfag, Einar.Overbye@hioa.no Aksel HatlandForsker I, Institutt for samfunnsforskning, Aksel.Hatland@samfunnsforskning.no Lars Inge TerumProfessor, Høgskolen i Oslo og Akershus, Senter for profesjonsstudier, LarsInge.Terum@hioa.no Sanctions -the dark side of activation policy?A common tendency across Europe is the increased use of so-called «active conditionalities» when granting welfare benefits. «Active conditionalities» means that receipt of a welfare benefit is conditioned on the claimant performing some prescribed activity -such as work (workfare), active job search, or pursuing education or «activation» courses during daytime. Activation requirements are often presented as empowering devices, i.e. as ways to enhance the human capital of the claimant. The flip side of active requirements, however, is the implementation of what we label «sanctioning regimes», directed toward claimants who fail to fulfil, or maintain, the prescribed activity. We argue that most sanctioning regimes comprise three elements: a system for registering and transmitting information with regard to compliance/non-compliance, a system for issuing warnings, and a system for implementing sanctions. Using Norway as a case study, we show that sanctioning regimes differ from one welfare benefit to the next; they are not all equally formally institutionalized, their level of complexity varies, and the amount of discretion awarded middle managers, street-level administrators, social workers, teachers and employers varies as regards how to report non-compliance, issue warnings, and implement sanctions. Knowledge about how sanctioning regimes are designed and operate is important both from a theoretical and practical perspective, and we suggest some avenues for further research. Keywords sanctions, activation, conditionality, Norway, social policyThis article is downloaded from www.idunn.no. © 2016 Author(s). This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons CC-BY-NC 4.0 License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), allowing third parties to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format and to remix, transform, and build upon the material for non-commercial use, provided the original author and source are credited. Tidsskrift for velferdsforskning Årgang 19, Nr. 1-2016, s. 24-43 ISSN online: 2464 This article is downloaded from www.idunn.no. © 2016 Author(s). This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons CC-BY-NC 4.0 License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), allowing third parties to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format and to remix, transform, and build upon the material for non-commercial use, provided the original author and source are credited. FAGFELLEVURDERT ARTIKKEL DOI: 10.18261/ issn.2464-3076-2016 ABSTRACT:
What are the levels of living conditions of young social assistance recipients compared to the youth population at large? This paper investigates living conditions among young social assistance recipients in Norway, compared to a similar age group within the total population. The overall distribution indicates a cumulative rather than compensatory pattern. Social assistance recipients trail behind the population at large across all indicators. They lag more behind the overall population with regard to cumulative levels‐of‐living scores than with regard to each and every indicator. This lends support to the notion that one should adopt an integrated approach in the treatment of youth living on social assistance, rather than focus on any single issue as “the” problem to assess.
ProfessorHøgskolen i Oslo og Akershus einar.overbye@hioa.no SAMMENDRAG Det har blitt stadig vanligere å karakterisere norske velferdsordninger som «universelle», også i autoritative politiske dokumenter. Det reiser spørsmålet om hva som karakteriserer universelle velferdsordninger, og om universalisme alltid er å foretrekke framfor selektivisme. Artikkelen drøfter disse spørsmålene gjennom en detaljert redegjørelse av karakteristika ved ulike velferdsordninger. Naerstudien viser at demarkasjonslinjen mellom universalisme og selektivisme blir vanskeligere å trekke jo mer nøyaktig man beskriver faktiske velferdsordninger, og i forlengelsen av dette at ulike former for selektivisme ofte kan vaere å foretrekke framfor rendyrket universalisme. Nøkkelord:Universalisme, velferdsstat, skjønn, sosiale rettigheter ABSTRACT «Universalism» is increasingly used as a concept to characterize Norwegian welfare programs, even in authoritative political documents. This raises the question of what universalism entails, and if universalism is always preferable to selectivism. The article argues that the demarcation line between «universalism» and «selectivism» becomes increasingly difficult to draw the more one focuses on particular welfare designs, and consequently that various types of selectivism may often provide a better fit with the problems at hand than all-out universalism.This article is downloaded from www.idunn.no.
To study discrimination in labour/housing markets, and among street-level bureaucrats in the welfare state, present both theoretical and methodological challenges. In the sociological study of discrimination, experiments have seldom been used to study how street-level bureaucrats make their decisions. The context of decision-making is different in the state and in markets, but experimental methods can provide new knowledge of how perceptions of deservingness may potentially lead to discrimination in the welfare state. Using a vignette experiment on Norwegian street-level bureaucrats ( N = 645), we investigate if their perceptions of recipients’ ethnic background, and perceived ‘unfavourable’ behaviour, affect the propensity to impose a time-limited termination of unemployment benefits due to non-compliance with activity requirements. The experiment finds that the propensity to terminate the unemployment benefit was initially less for the recipient with an ethnic minority name, compared to the recipient with an ethnic majority name. However, when information about ‘unfavourable’ behaviour was added to the vignette, the propensity to sanction the ethnic minority recipient strongly increased. The results suggest that perceived deservingness-traits are crucial for understanding possible discrimination when street-level bureaucrats face ethnic minorities in the welfare state. Ethnic markers interact with markers of ‘deservingness’. Theoretical and methodological implications when studying potential discrimination among street-level bureaucrats are discussed.
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