Perspektiv på välfärden 2004 (pdf) - Statistiska centralbyrån

Youth
rect, as an indicator of the incidence of economic
problems. The indicators are displayed in table 2.
There is no discernable trend among the single
indicators. Trouble making ends meet actually
increases over time, while, for example, it becomes
less common to borrow from family or
friends in order to buy food or pay the rent. The
indicators are summarized into an index, henceforth
referred to as the deprivation index, which
varies between zero and seven. Mean values and
standard deviations are shown in table 1. The
deprivation index also shows an unambiguous
trend over time, decreasing between t 0 and t 1 ,
thereafter increasing again at t 2 . Evaluating the
degree to which this development mirrors the
general economic development – t 2 being affected
by the deep recession in the beginning of the
1990s – or whether it reflects a life course pattern
in which the worsening situation between t 1 and t 2
is mainly caused by family formation and, more
specifically, parenthood, is beyond the scope of
this article.
Income and the deprivation index constitute the
outcome variables in this study. The question is
what kinds of circumstances affect the outcome.
A number of variables, related to the discussion
above, will be introduced in the analysis. The
distributions of the variables are shown in table 3
and they are operationalized in the following way.
Age is based on year of birth and gender on the
respondent’s sex. Now, age might be seen as superfluous,
as the population covers a restricted
age span from the beginning. However, the age
span covers a very volatile period in most people’s
lives; there is usually a great difference between
being 19 and being 25. Thus, age is used as
a control for systematic age differences. In addition,
interactions between age and the variables
related to block 2 in Figure 1 have also been
tested. There is, however, only one such interaction
that, in the end, had a significant impact, and
hence is included in the analysis; this interaction
is between being a student and age.
Class of origin refers to the Swedish socioeconomic
classification schema (SEI). This
schema is designed to identify labour market positions
that have similar qualification requirements
to fill the position. Respondents were asked about
their parents’ main occupation during upbringing.
Six different classes are identified: 1) Blue-collar
workers are those who do manual labour. No distinction
is made between positions that demand
vocational training and those that do not. 2)
Lower white-collar workers occupy a non-manual
position requiring at least some secondary schooling.
3) Middle white-collar workers hold positions
that require at least three years of upper secondary
schooling. 4) Higher white-collar workers hold
positions that normally require a university de-
72
gree. Professional entrepreneurs, such as architects
and doctors, are included in this group. Besides
these four groups of employed individuals,
two categories of self-employed are distinguish.
Thus the fifth class is made up of all selfemployed
individuals, except farmers, who form
the sixth and final category. In the first panel
wave only father’s occupation was asked about.
However, the two subsequent waves also contain
mother’s occupation. In the cases where the
mother's and father’s class positions diverged, the
‘highest’ class position was assigned as class of
origin. If both parents were employed, this operation
is relatively straightforward, following the
hierarchy from blue-collar workers to higher
white-collar workers. If one parent was a farmer
and the other employed, class of origin is set to
farmer. If one parent was self-employed, class of
origin is set to self-employed, regardless of the
other parent’s class position.
We are not, for reasons outlined above, analysing
the impact of the respondent's own class position
at t . Instead we use a number of other indica-
0
tors regarding the youth’s situation. The first
category to be differentiated is students. However,
a significant share of the population had already at
t completed their education, making it important
0
to also analyse their educational attainment. Five
different educational levels are operationalized: 1)
compulsory school only, 2) at most two years
vocational training, 3) more than two years of
secondary education, 4) at most less than three
years of tertiary education and, 4) three or more
years of tertiary education.
Unemployment is indicated by two variables
measuring unemployment experience during the
past five years. The first, which will be labelled
short-term unemployed, discriminates those unemployed
for less than six months during the past
five years, and the second, consequently called
long-term unemployed, covers those unemployed
more than six months during the past five years.
The household situation at t is indicated by two
0
variables. The first one, nest leaving, differentiates
between those who have left the parental
home and those still living with their parents. The
second, parenthood, discriminates those who have
their own children. The final variable, indicating
economic vulnerability, measures whether the
respondent has received social assistance any time
during the past twelve months 3
. This variable
3 From 1983 and onwards, is it possible to derive information
about social assistance from the income
register attached to ULF. Because this option is not
available for the t0 observation in this study, the indicator
is based on information from a question in ULF.
Comparing the question with register data in later ULF