The rise and fall of the Swedish model - interview with Swedish economist Rudolf Meidner - Interview

Challenge, Jan-Feb, 1998 by Bertram Silverman

Q. So the Meidner Plan was never incorporated into the model?

A. No, it was never officially incorporated into the model. But as you can see, it is a problem that must be solved. You can say; we failed, but the idea of wage-earner funds is not a Swedish concept. It is a West German idea, and it has been discussed for decades in other countries.

Q. You said that there were two consequences resulting from the solidaristic wage policy. What was the second?

A. It is what happens to less profitable firms. They cannot pay the same wages as the more efficient firms. As a consequence, they have to rationalize their operations. If they cannot, they will have to leave the marketplace and this will result in unemployment. Now you can see the connection between the wage policy of solidarity and active labor-market policies.

Q Clearly the goal of equality has played an important role in the development of the Swedish model. Did the goal of greater sexual equality influence how the labor movement and political leaders thought about achieving a more equal society? What role did sexual equality play in Sweden's concept of creating what some called a "people's home"?

A. I think you will get different answers to those questions depending on whom you ask. A good friend of mine who is a historian, Yvonne Hirdman, is writing a book on the Swedish Confederation of Trade Unions and women. She believes that the Swedish model was primarily a man's program. I do not fully agree with her. During the many long wage negotiations, in which I participated, we argued that women's wages should be increased more than men's wages. Sometimes it was more symbolic than real. But beginning in the 1960s, we started to eliminate special wages for women. Before that time women were paid less than men for exactly the same work. That was open discrimination. Between 1960 and 1965 such differentials were ended by common agreement between employers and unions. After that the wage gap narrowed. In 1960 it was about 25 percent. By 1965 it was virtually eliminated. But women are still concentrated in low-wage jobs. So, if you average all wages and salaries, the gender gap is still rather large. But it is smaller than before, and it is not the result of paying different wages for the same job. Of course, the concentration of women in lower-paid jobs must also be solved. We have closed the gender wage gap but not totally - but perhaps more than in most countries.

Q What about employment policies?

A. Our full employment policy also promotes sexual equality. We have managed to increase women's labor-force participation to practically the same rate as men's. But this includes part-time work. Forty-five percent of our women work part-time compared with 3 to 4 percent of men.

Q. Does this suggest that the concept of a "people's home" didn't necessarily imply equality within the family?

A. That's true, and that may be the most important aspect of the gender problem. We have managed to achieve at least some equality in the labor market but not in the family. Women still do most of the household work. But the goals of full employment and wage equality are related to sexual equality, and in that sense I would say that the concerns of women were a part of the Swedish model.