The Social Democratic Image of Society (Routledge Revivals) by Castles Francis;

Author:Castles, Francis; [Castles, Francis;]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780415557627
Publisher: TaylorFrancis
Published: 2011-01-02T06:00:00+00:00

Table 2.9 Mean household incomes by occupational status of the head of the household as a percentage of the overall mean household income

The occupational distribution in Table 2.9 is also of interest in showing which groups are most affluent and which are poorest. In all the Scandinavian countries, it is the upper white-collar employees who receive the highest income, and the unskilled and, in Norway and Sweden, the farmers, who receive the lowest incomes. This distribution has significant political implications since it suggests reasons why the Scandinavian centrist parties have not been actively opposed to income redistribution efforts, and why, in particular, parties with a large agrarian clientele (the Centre parties in Norway and Sweden) have been active proponents of equality policy. The findings of the various studies of income distribution in Scandinavia have had a major impact on policymakers. Thus, to give but one example, the Norwegian parties have reached an agreement whereby farm incomes are to reach the level attained by skilled industrial workers within a five-year period. The greatest political problem which emerges from the data in Table 2.9 is the low incomes of the unskilled workers. Unlike the farmers, they have no distinctive political instrumentality of their own to press for higher living standards. Their interests are represented as an aspect of the Social Democratic egalitarian effort, but it is clear from the relative size of the unskilled and skilled groups of workers that the concerns of the latter are likely to receive the most attention. Moreover, it is precisely the unskilled and casual workers who are least organised in trade unions and are, therefore, least likely to be affected by solidaristic wage policies.

cent of A measure of the distribution of large social groups has the disadvantage that it conceals the wide discrepancies that occur within occupational groups. Uusitalo presents an alternative way of looking at the level of economic inequality by examining the distribution of household incomes per capita in terms of the share received by each decile of the population. I will quote his major conclusions from this comparison of the Scandinavian countries’ levels of income inequality.

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