Sweden's Pensioners: How They Have Fared in the Roller Coaster Ride through the Past Decade and a Half of Deep Recession and Economic Exuberance

Björn Anders Gustafsson (), Mats Johansson () and Edward Palmer ()
Additional contact information
Björn Anders Gustafsson: Göteborg University
Mats Johansson: Institute for Futures Studies, Stockholm
Edward Palmer: Uppsala University

No 3248, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This study analyses the development of the economic well-being of the elderly in Sweden since 1990 – a period characterized by increased influence from the financial market and extreme economic events – using data from the Household Income Survey. The elderly were not isolated as pensions were cut, full indexation abandoned and taxes increased during Sweden’s deep recession in the 1990s. Instead, relatively, pensioners fared better than the working age population. On the other hand, poverty increased in absolute terms. In contrast in the following years of rapid economic growth, the growth in the income of the pensioners fell behind that of workers and relative poverty increased. The analysis shows that the limited resources of many of the elderly put them close to a socially interesting poverty line. Income inequality among the elderly has increased with an increase in the importance of capital income for the better off among the elderly, with a clear tendency towards delineation between the better and worse off, which we conclude has implications for public expenditures for the elderly. Overall, poverty among the elderly in Sweden remains low in an international perspective and our analysis leads us to conclude that the Swedish welfare state has maintained its resilience.

Keywords: income inequality; poverty; income; pensions; Sweden (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D31 H55 I32 J14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 46 pages
Date: 2007-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age, nep-eec and nep-ltv
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Published - revised version published as "The Welfare of Sweden's Old-age Pensioners in Times of Bust and Boom from 1990" in: Ageing and Society, 2009, 29 (4), 539-561

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp3248.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3248

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().