Employmentweb_low

policies and interventions
case study 65. Assessing employment policies in two clusters of core labour countries: Is there a contradiction between
the performance of economic, social and health indicators - dennis raphael
there are two main streams that constitute the employment policy literature. the first is that of traditional economic
analysis that sees the assessment of employment policies being based primarily on employment or participation rates and
associated unemployment rates and, second, on indicators of economic growth. these kind of economic analyses are seen
as the major criteria of success in employment policies by the organization for economic cooperation and development
(oecd) who provide these on an ongoing basis. the second stream is one that places employment policies within
frameworks that consider the extent to which heath and the determinants of health are influenced by these policies. this
more diverse literature draws upon contributions from the political economy and the social development literatures.
the english-speaking nations (e.g., Usa, UK, canada, australia, new Zealand) have been identified as implementing
very different liberal approaches to economic and social labour market and social policies as compared to the well known
nordic nations (eg., sweden, denmark, norway, Finland) that follow a labour market and social approach informed by social
democratic principles. table 1 illustrates some of the data provided by the oecd indicators. in regards to the key indicators
of economic growth and unemployment rates there are negligible differences between those two clusters of countries.
Table 1. comparison between two clusters of core labour market countries on oecd economic
indicators (liberal labour institutions and social democratic labour institutions).
GroWTh in per capiTa Gdp GroWTh in laBoUr force UneMployMenT raTes
1993-2003 2004 2005 1993-2003 2004 2005 1993-2003 2004 2005
lIberAl
australia 3.9 3.2 2.6 2.1 1.9 3.5 7.7 5.6 5.0
canada 3.5 2.9 2.9 2.0 1.8 1.4 8.7 7.2 6.8
new Zealand 3.7 4.3 1.9 2.3 3.4 2.8 6.5 3.9 3.7
UK 3.0 3.1 1.8 1.1 1.0 1.0 7.0 4.7 4.8
Us 3.2 4.2 3.5 1.4 1.1 1.8 5.3 5.5 5.1
Average 3.5 3.5 2.5 1.8 1.8 2.1 7.0 5.4 5.1
SocIAl DemocrAtIc
denmark 2.5 1.9 3.1 0.7 0.0 0.6 5.8 5.5 4.8
norway 3.3 3.1 2.3 1.2 0.3 0.6 4.3 4.5 4.6
sweden 2.9 3.2 2.7 0.7 -0.4 1.0 6.3 5.5 5.8
finland 3.6 3.5 2.2 1.3 0.0 1.5 12.2 8.9 8.4
Average 3.1 2.9 2.6 1.0 0.0 0.9 7.2 6.1 5.9
table 2 presents data that considers the two clusters of core labour market countries along three social determinants of
health: poverty rates, income inequality, and union density, and three population health indicators: life expectancy, infant mortality,
and low birthweight (oecd, 2005; 2006) there are profound differences between the two clusters on poverty rates, income inequality
and Union density. interestingly, health differences are not apparent for life expectancy but do emerge for the infant mortality and
low birthweight data favouring the social democratic group of countries.
Table 2. comparison between two hroups of high labour market gunctioning nations on selected
indicators of the social determinants of population health (sdph) and population health itself.
sdph (2002) popUlaTion healTh indicaTors (2004)
life expectancy
poverty Gini income Union density
infant Mortality low Birthweight
Women Men
lIberAl
australia 11.2 30.5 24.5 83.0 78.1 5.0 6.3
canada 10.3 30.1 28.1 82.4 77.4 5.2 5.8
new Zealand 10.4 31.4 22.7 81.3 77.0 6.3 6.1
UK 11.4 32.6 31.2 80.7 76.2 5.3 7.6
Us 17.0 35.7 12.8 80.1 74.8 6.8 8.1
Average 12.1 32.1 23.9 81.5 76.7 5.7 6.8
SocIAl DemocrAtIc
denmark 4.3 22.5 74.4 79.9 75.2 4.4 5.3
norway 6.3 26.1 54.3 81.4 76.9 3.9 4.8
sweden 5.3 24.3 81.1 82.3 77.5 2.8 4.2
finland 6.4 26.1 76.2 82.3 75.3 3.0 4.2
Average 5.6 24.8 71.5 81.5 76.2 3.5 4.6
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