Perspektiv på välfärden 2004 (pdf) - Statistiska centralbyrån

ered on three occasions, and there are, hence,
eight years between every point of measurement
(for information about the dataset, see below).
The point of departure for the empirical analysis
is taken in figure 1. Three blocks of factors are
distinguished. The first block contains year of
birth, gender and class of origin. These aspects are
exogenous, internally unrelated and also invariant
over time. The rational for including gender and
class of origin is discussed above, but that is not
the case for year of birth. There are, even though
only a very narrow age span is included in the
analysis, probably significant age differences in
the population at the first point of measurement,
and the only reason for including age is to keep
these differences under control. We do not expect
age to have any long-term impact, but we do expect
that age will affect the situation at t 0 . The
second block in Figure 1 contains information
about labour market affiliation, education and
household formation at t 0 , i.e., these factors are
assumed to capture some of the most important
characteristics that, as discussed above, distinguish
between different categories of youth. The
second block is assumed to be dependent on the
first block; labour market affiliation is, for example,
assumed to be influenced by age, gender
an00d, of course, class of origin. We assume that
the characteristics within block two are internally
related. However, no assumptions about causation
are made. Hence, we are, for example, not assuming
that people have left the nest because they are
employed or that they study and therefore are not
employed. The obvious reason is that the direction
of causation in both cases could be the opposite,
i.e., some people will study because they cannot
find a job and some will work because they left
the nest.
The last block consists of indicators of economic
circumstances and changes over time in
these circumstances, i.e., the basic outcome variables.
What will be measured are income level
and the incidence of economic difficulties at t 0 .
We 0assume that income level and economic
difficulties covary, but we do not assume a causal
relationship. It is further assumed that change in
income and change in economic problems over
time are affected by the starting level at t 0 . Finally,
we suppose that change in income relates to
change in economic difficulties; that is, if the
income increases we believe that the incidence of
economic problem will decrease, but we do not
assume a unidirectional causal relationship, as it
could be the case that economic problems lead
people to increase their earnings. The model facilitates
an analysis of the impact of class, gender
and other vital circumstances on the economic
situation during the youth period itself and the
Youth
development over time as the transition into
adulthood is made.
Data, method and operationalizations
Data sources
The analyses are based on data from the annual
Swedish Survey of Living Conditions (ULF) (Häll
and Vogel 1997). ULF is based on a representative
sample of the Swedish population aged 16 to
84. In 1979, a panel approach was introduced and
since then a sub-sample has been re-interviewed
every eighth year. Thus, it is now possible to analyse
a three-wave panel covering a period of 16
years. To maximize the available sample size,
data from 1979, 1980, 1981 and 1982 are merged.
The panel samples from these four years were reinterviewed
a second time in 1986, 1987, 1988,
1989 and 1990 and a third time in 1994, 1995,
1996, 1997 and 1998 2 . The average non-response
rate was 14.4 per cent during 1979-82, increased
to an average of 21.0 per cent for 1986-90 and
21.3 per cent during 1994-98. For the sake of
convenience, the first panel wave will be labelled
t 0 , the second t 1 and third t 2 . The working sample
has been limited to those who were between 19
and 25 years old at the first wave, and accordingly
between 35 and 41 years old when data for the
third wave were collected. The working sample is
made up of 1,435 respondents, representing those
who participated at all three waves.
Operationalizations of variables
The main outcome variables are income and an
indicator of economic difficulties. Income is
measured as the individuals’ income before tax
recalculated to 1998's prices. Hence, what is analysed
is the overall capacity to earn an income
regardless of income source and taxation. The
income measure should not be viewed as a direct
indicator of economic well-being. Taxes will of
course impact the amount of money left for consumption,
and we do not know the household’s,
i.e., the consumption unit’s, income or size. By
focusing on the0 individual income, we do not
risk blurring the analysis by the substantial
changes in disposable income and, even more so,
in equivalent disposable income that are caused
by changes in household composition. The distribution
of the income variable is shown in table 1.
Instead of using income, direct information
based on survey questions will be used as an indication
of economic standard, or to be more cor-
2
The sample from 1979 is about twice as large as the
latter sample, and the panel is split so that half the
sample were re-interviewed in 1986 and the other half
in 1987.
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