Statens offentliga utredningar från Socialdepartementet

Two of a kind SOU 2000:83

Publicerad 01 oktober 2000 Uppdaterad 02 april 2015

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This report is a modest attempt at such a comparison. The choice to compare Finland and Sweden can be justified on one hand by the fact that these countries and especially their welfare states are often grouped together in international comparisons and affiliated with the Nordic welfare model, and on the other hand because Finland and Sweden were also most similar in terms of their experience in the early 1990s. No other countries in Europe underwent such severe economic problems and rapid increases in unemployment in the early 1990s. In fact, the magnitude of the changes has no parallel among the industrialised countries during the entire post-war era. In contrast to these underlying similarities the adaptation strategies of the two countries have often been very divergent, which poses an interesting starting point for a comparison.