ust over 60 percent, stabilizing at that level in about the late 1980s. The public sector itself expanded dramatically, absorbing most of the labor force growth between 1950 and 1995. The objective of this expansion was the provision of basic public services and income redistribution, both as a goal in itself and as insurance against unemployment, sickness, disability and old age. By international standards, the distribution of wages is even, and the high participation of women in work further increases equality in wage outcomes.
A ôcradle-to-graveö social welfare system has thus come to typify the Swedish social welfare state (Vartiainen (1998). Politically, the model cemented for long periods the power of the Social Democrats. It has created political preferences that favor social democracy, since more than one-half of the wage-earners in Sweden work directly or indirectly within the realm of the public economy.
Olsen (1999) stated that policy-makers concerned with social equality have long considered SwedenÆs welfare state quintessential, an
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