WHAT EQUALITY? LIFE COURSE DIVERSITY AND INEQUALITY IN LATER LLIFE IN CHANGING SWEDEN

• Published in: Innovation in aging 2017-07, Vol.1 (suppl_1), p.845-845
• Main Authors: Motel-Klingebiel, A., Kelfve, S.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Abstracts
• ISSN: 2399-5300; 2399-5300
• DOI: 10.1093/geroni/igx004.3045

This paper discusses shifts in inequality over time in Sweden, which serves as a case example of a quickly changing welfare society. Its 60+ population of today faced the golden age of capitalism, prosperity and welfare but also crises, new uncertainties, erosions and shifts in social norms and organisation of labour. These changes add to life course inhomogeneity, generate asynchronies, and create winners and losers regarding life chances and inclusion. Transformations in life courses and social institutions exacerbate the cumulation of (dis)advantage and have crucial impacts on employment, retirement transitions and later life. Aspects like gender, cohort, education, ethnicity and others moderate these dynamics. Increasing disparities between societies give rise to migration and contribute in turn to differences within countries. This study deals with changing population compositions, patterns and later-life consequences of life courses in Sweden focusing on inter- and intra-cohort disparities. By taking an international comparative perspective, Swedish trends are contrasted with those in other European societies. Based on extensive Swedish registry information and European survey data from EU-SILC, this study assesses changes in trajectories and distributions in a cohort-sequential perspective. Results of this ongoing study find significant shifts in life course patterns that are fortified by variations in population compositions, with disadvantaged groups as forerunners in overall relative declines in later-life economic positions, and increasing intra-cohort inequalities corresponding with unexpected drawbacks for many as well as new possibilities for others.