Changing Swedish Welfare State – Toward a More Flexible Model

This paper examines a number of traditional characteristics of the Swedish welfare state, and discusses how they have been changed over time, especially since the economic crisis in the early 1990s. It emphasizes that the country did not only suffer from the economic crisis and recent environmental changes, but also took advantage of them to overcome various endogenous weaknesses of the traditional model. While our observation might be skewed to optimism reflecting recent economic success, Sweden seems to have gained its flexibility, which looks more appropriate as a state model in the era of very changeable socio-economic circumstances at the beginning of the twenty-first century.