Ageing and welfare reform in the Nordic Countries, 1990-2010 ...

1. IntroductionAs regards demographic change, Nordic countries are less under pressure than most Europeancountries. As Esping-Andersen (2009: 4) puts it, ”pension reform begins with babies”, and due to”pro-natal” child policies, all the Nordic countries have maintained relatively high fertility ratesclose to 2.0 (Table 1). 1 Even though the ratio of elderly people (65 years or more) to working agepopulation (15-64 years) will increase substantially from about 25 per cent to slightly above 40 percent from 2010 to 2050, the Nordic countries will remain relatively ”young” by European standards(Figure 1). By comparison, the old age dependency ratio in Japan is expected to pass the 40 per centlevel already by 2013, and in Japan, the old age dependency ratio is expected to reach almost twicethe Nordic level in the 2050s (Table 2; Figure 2).Table 1. Fertility and Life Expectancy at Birth, European and OECD Countries, 2009.FertilityLife expectancyMenWomenIceland 2.23 79.8 83.8Norway 1.98 78.7 83.3Denmark 1.84 76.9 81.1Sweden 1.94 79.4 83.5Finland 1.86 76.6 83.5France 2.00 78.0 85.0UK 1.94 77.8 81.9Netherlands 1.79 78.7 82.9Belgium 1.84 77.3 82.8Germany 1.36 77.8 82.8Austria 1.39 77.6 83.2Switzerland 1.50 79.9 84.6Italy 1.42 79.3 84.7Spain 1.40 78.7 84.9Poland 1.40 71.5 80.1Japan (2008) 1.37 79.3 86.1USA (2009/07) 2.05 75.4 80.4Source: Eurostat, Jap.Stat.Yearbook, US Census.None the less, the Nordic countries have adopted encompassing policy changes in order to addressthe demographic challenge. This includes not only pension reforms, but also an “activation” of theentire social and tax policy in order to stimulate labour supply. The latter has aimed at improving1 High-quality child care, parental leve and child benefits is seen as the source of what is sometimes described as aNordic fertility regime (Andersson et al., 2009). Empirical evidence regarding determinants of fertility remain disputed.But it is generally agreed that several socio-economic determinants of fertility have reversed (Billari & Kohler, 2004;Myrskylä et al., 2009; Bloom & Souza-Poza, 2010), and most studies converge towards seeing pro-natal policiesembedded in a (policy-nourished) familiy friendly culture as fertility-enhancing (Sleebos, 2003; Hilgeman & Butts,2009; Hoem, 2008).2