This article examines the use of split shifts—workdays divided into two periodswith a long, unpaid break—in Swedish eldercare. Despite their widespreaduse, the structural factors driving this scheduling practice remain unclear.Using a case study approach and qualitative comparative analysis (QCA), thestudy explores these factors across municipalities. Insights were drawn frominterviews with HR managers, previous research, and power resource theory(PRT), which were used to identify and test relevant conditions. Empirically,the study highlights key drivers behind the use of split shifts; theoretically, itdemonstrates how PRT can explain variations in working conditions. The find-ings reveal two distinct pathways: one involving a high proportion of elderlyresidents, economic hardship, and absence of a left-wing majority; the otherreplacing political orientation with high unemployment. These patterns sup-port both the interview data and theoretical framework, showing how struc-tural conditions shape staffing practices in eldercare. © 2025 The Author(s).

Since the 2007–2008 financial crisis, it has been suggested that the middle class is undergoing proletarianisation, with stagnant wages and reduced work autonomy making their conditions more like those of the working class. However, there is no consensus on whether this shift has occurred or on how to define the two classes. This article proposes a class concept rooted in value domination, which compels individuals to the market for survival. While both classes depend on the market, the middle class is defined by their greater individual market power and a labour power with higher value, resulting in higher wages and better working conditions. Using this definition, the proletarianisation thesis is examined in Sweden. Findings indicate a widening wage gap, with middle class wages diverging from those of the working class, and no significant reduction in middle class autonomy relative to the working class. These results suggest that proletarianisation has not occurred, and class distinctions have, in fact, intensified. © The Author(s) 2025.

While the Nordic labor market model is renowned for providing ‘good’ jobs, we have over the last decade nonetheless seen the rise of platform-mediated gig work, associated with relatively precarious working conditions, in the Nordic countries. Analyzing the emergence and development of platform-mediated gig work in the taxi and food delivery industries in Denmark, Finland, Norway,and Sweden, this article identifies four trajectories: Evasion, disruption, adaption, and market exit. It shows that gig platforms established themselves in the ‘fringes’ of the Nordic labor market model, evaded regulations by classifying workers as self-employed contractors, recruited workers from marginalized segments of the labor force, and provoked regulatory responses that deregulatedmarkets to facilitate their business model. The analysis thus highlights the importance of product market regulations in shaping the development of platform-mediated gig work and emphasizes the segmented nature of the Nordic labor market model. ©2020 Author and Journal.

Vad hände med arbetarklassen? En gång i tiden utmålades arbetarklassen som drivkraften för välstånd och välfärd i vårt land. Idag beskrivs den alltmer som en kvarleva från ett svunnet industrisamhälle. Arbetarna har lämnats på efterkälken och övergivits av dem som skulle företräda dem politiskt. Fokus har flyttats till företagarna och medelklassen. 

Men arbetarklassen är i högsta grad levande. Det är fortfarande den största klassgruppen i Sverige och det arbete klassen utför är oumbärligt för att vårt samhälle ska fungera. Samtidigt är de vårt samhälles stora förlorare, med sämre löneutveckling, ökad otrygghet, lågt inflytande över sitt arbete och sämre hälsa. De har drabbats hårdast av ökande levnadskostnader. 

Sociologen Johan Alfonsson argumenterar för att arbetarklassens strukturella och kollektiva maktresurser har urholkats genom medveten politik sedan 1990-talet. Arbetarna har satts åt sidan och i stället har främst kapitalägare gynnats. Klassklyftorna har vidgats dramatiskt. 

För att vända utvecklingen måste arbetarklassens makt stärkas. Den här boken undersöker hur detta kan gå till och pekar ut möjliga vägar framåt. 

Boken är försedd med ett förord av sociologen och nestorn inom klassanalys Göran Therborn samt en studiehandledning för dem som vill läsa tillsammans i grupp.

Sweden’s Industrial Agreement (IA) has long been heralded as a cornerstone of the country’s balanced growth model – anchoring wage formation to export sector norms while also promoting wage equality across the labour market. This paper interrogates the IA’s distributive outcomes between 2014 and 2023, a period spanning both pre-pandemic stability and post-pandemic inflation. Using occupational wage data and multinomial regression analyses, we find a growing divergence between the IA’s intentions and its effects. While the manufacturing sector maintains its benchmark function, wage growth has become increasingly stratified by occupational hierarchy and wage level. High-status groups, such as those in advanced-education occupations, generally outperform others in wage growth, particularly during inflationary periods. In contrast, many low-wage and mid-tier occupations face poorer wage increases. These findings suggest an institutional drift in the IA model: though it retains formal coordination at the industry level, it fails to contain wage growth dispersion across occupational and income strata. As wage level and occupational hierarchy shape outcomes, the solidaristic underpinnings of Sweden’s wage-setting regime appear to erode – raising fundamental questions about the future of the balanced growth model and the legitimacy of IA as a mechanism for equitable wage development. © Australian Labour and Employment Relations Association (ALERA) 2025.

This article examines the changes in power resources in the Swedish labour market since the 1990s and investigates the factors that have caused these changes by utilising an ideological theoretical approach. Specifically, it explores the impact of ideological changes on power resources, such as the level of unemployment, the strength of trade unions, and institutional power resources. The ideological approach is used as the analytical tool to analyse the interaction between ideas and the material world. The article analyses 24 government policy documents and how they relate to the context where the ideas arise. First, I provide a contextual description in which the changing of power resources has occurred, then government bills related to the changing of power resources are analysed. I argue that the changes were motivated by the need to adapt to a globalised and flexible economy to create growth. The reduction in employeesʼ power resources can be seen as an outcome of a dialectical spiral between ideas and the context in which they exist, and I suggest that promoting employee interests rather than growth could have led to a different outcome. © 2024 Author(s). 

Can the Nordic wage-setting model, where social partners decide wages through collective agreements, counteract a growing low-paid sector? This article tests four definitions of low-paid jobs to analyze whether this sector has grown for the period 2005–2020 in Sweden. Despite policy changes pointing towards growth, all definitions show a slight decrease in low-paid jobs over time. The authors argue that the industrial relations system, with the aim of keeping the industry wage increases in check to aid export competitiveness, also sets a uniform level wage that limits low-paid jobs. It is also found that low pay in the Swedish setting is partly a result of working less than full-time or having unstable employment, and service workers and those with low education are becoming increasingly common in this position.

[No abstract available]

To bring alienation to an end, Johan Alfonsson writes, a radical change in both capitalist society’s basic practices and premise, self-determination, is required.