The paper examines inequalities in mental health and "serious" illness, i.e. illness with significant consequences, among 964 men and women aged 65 and over in Norway. The aim is to analyse the extent to which the assumed class differentials in ill health in later life are accounted for by...

The Nordic countries share many features as far as welfare state and labour market institutions are concerned. However, the upper secondary school systems differ significantly in how the vocational tracks are organized. In Denmark and Norway vocational tracks are dual, i.e. they combine school...

The aim of this paper is to examine educational inequalities in the risk of non-employment among people with illnesses and how they vary between European countries with different welfare state characteristics. In doing so, the paper adds to the growing literature on welfare states and social...

This study examined changes over time in relative health inequalities among men and women in four Nordic countries, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. A serious economic recession burst out in the early 1990s particularly in Finland and Sweden. We ask whether this adverse social structural...

Current occupational status is frequently used as an indicator of position in the socioeconomic structure in analyses of health inequalities. People outside the work-force are thereby ignored. One may hypothesize that due to a 'healthy worker effect' economically active are a positively selected...

This study investigates the degree to which contextual income inequality in economic regions in Norway affected mortality during the 1990s, above the effects of mean regional income and individual-level confounders. A further objective is to explore whether income inequality effects on mortality...

A puzzle in comparative health inequality research is the finding that egalitarian welfare states do not necessarily demonstrate narrow health inequalities. This paper interrogates into this puzzle by moving beyond welfare regimes to examine how welfare spending affect inequalities in self-rated...

The continuing expansion of women's employment has increasingly focused attention on the question of how the caring work traditionally carried out by unpaid women will be accomplished. In particular, how can caring responsibilities be combined with a long-term career? In this paper, we assess...

Both women and men strive to achieve a work and family balance, but does this imply more or less equality? Does the persistence of gender and class inequalities refute the notion that lives are becoming more individualised? Leading international authorities document how gender inequalities are...

A number of previous studies have documented a fairly high level of marital homogamy in Norway. Most of these studies, however, have been local and ethnographic, or based on national data measuring homogamy within a limited time period. This study is based on a sample of 129 651 individuals from...