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Future Challenges for Sweden

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Future Challenges for Sweden Ds 2013:19 Future Challenges for Sweden FINAL REPORT OF THE COMMISSION ON THE FUTURE OF SWEDEN Translation of Ds 2013:19 Ds 2013:19 Future Challenges Facing Sweden – Final Report of the Commission on the Future of Sweden Translation of Ds 2013:19 Prime Minister’s Office Cover: Blomquist Annonsbyrå. Cover art: Children playing at Sommarland in Leksand. Photo: Ulf Palm / Scanpix. Stockholm 2013 ISSN 0284-6012 Preface Forty years ago, Sweden was in many ways a very different country to what it is today. In 1970, Swedish Television began broadcasting its programmes in colour across the country and the Riksdag approved a government bill shortening normal working time to 40 hours a week. The freedom to choose a school for one’s children was only open to a privileged few and the only telephone provider in the market was the state-owned company Televerket. In the years that followed, Sweden saw the age of majority reduced from 20 to 18, the prohibition of corporal punishment, the introduction of the parental benefit scheme, and the declassification of homosexuality as a medical condition. Europe was divided and largely defined by the Cold War between the West and the communist Eastern bloc. That era now seems a distant memory. Sweden and the world have experienced major changes, particularly with respect to population growth, technology, globalisation, welfare, freedom of choice, communication and attitudes towards the environment. What does this tell us about the next 40 years? What kind of country will we and our children be living in in 2050? What challenges lie ahead for Swedish society? Most people's lives revolve mainly around everyday issues, things that need to be dealt with in the present – today or tomorrow. But how will our everyday lives be affected in the long term? What processes impact on us as a society and the world we live in? If we are to face the future fully equipped, we must raise our sights. In order to identify the challenges facing Sweden in the longer term, up to 2020 and 2050, the Government appointed the Commission on the Future of Sweden (Framtidskommissionen) in the autumn of 2011. Over a period of a year and a half the Commission has spoken with and listened to people across the country. Some 40 seminars, countless exchanges through personal meetings and on social media, and projects involving hundreds of upper-secondary school pupils as well as municipalities from Trelleborg to Arjeplog, have given people an opportunity to discuss, to debate and to put forward informed, perceptive ideas about their own and Sweden’s future. This book sets out the Commission’s final report. Particular attention is focused on challenges relating to sustainable growth, demographic development, labour market integration, democracy, gender equality and social cohesion. However, the report is far from exhaustive. It does not offer proposals on how future challenges are to be met. Indeed, this was not its aim. Rather it identifies a series of challenges that Sweden may in due course be confronted with. It may therefore be seen as an important step in the ongoing work of shaping a policy for a future Sweden. The members of the Commission have themselves contributed valuable viewpoints and perspectives. We would like to thank Viveca Ax:son Johnson, Chair of the Board of Nordstjernan, Klas Eklund, economist and professor, Helena Jonsson, Chair of the National Board of Directors of the Federation of Swedish Farmers (Lantbrukarnas Riksförbund – LRF), Pekka Mellergård, senior lecturer in neurosurgery and senior physician, Eva Nordmark, Chair of the Executive Committee of the Swedish Confederation for Professional Employees (Tjänstemännens Centralorganisation – TCO), Johan Rockström, professor and Head of the Stockholm Resilience Centre, Mernosh Saatchi, CEO of Humblestorm, Lars Trägårdh, professor at the Ersta Sköndal Institute of Higher Education, and Stina Westerberg, Director-General of Music Development and Heritage Sweden (Statens musikverk), for many interesting exchanges and discussions. In addition, our thanks go to all those who have taken part in this project and who have shared their visions for the future. We are also grateful to the Commission Secretariat, in particular Special Advisers Mårten Blix, Petter Hojem, Patrick Joyce and Charlotta Levay, who respectively drafted the interim reports on demography, on sustainable development, on integration, participation and gender equality, and on social justice and cohesion. Finally, we would like to thank Professor Jesper Strömbäck, the Commission’s Administrative Director and Principal Secretary, who has done an admirable job of keeping the entire project together. Jesper Strömbäck also drafted the final report, in consultation with us. Although we, the undersigned, are ultimately responsible for the report, we would like to thank Jesper Strömbäck for having so successfully captured the future challenges identified by the Commission. A final report is by its nature definitive, and the present one is no exception. It marks the conclusion of the Commission’s work. However, we hope that it will also herald the start of a public conversation about the kind of Sweden we would like to have in the future – and how best to realise that vision. We will take up the challenges identified by the Commission in the course of our continuing efforts to develop policies for Sweden, and we hope that its work will have encouraged the kind of public debate and discussion that Sweden needs. We will continue to pursue these issues in the policy arena. However, it is essential that the conversation also be conducted and developed in school classrooms, around the kitchen table, at the workplace, in company boardrooms, within local government and government agencies, in civil society, and in many other forums. Stockholm, March 2013 Fredrik Reinfeldt, Prime Minister and Chair of the Commission on the Future Jan Björklund, Minister for Education and Deputy Prime Minister Annie Lööf, Minister for Enterprise and Regional Affairs Göran Hägglund, Minister for Health and Social Affairs Contents 1 Setting our sights on the future ................................... 11 Introduction ...................................................................................... 11 The Commission’s remit .................................................................. 12 Sweden in an international perspective ............................................ 16 Values in Sweden in an international perspective............................ 21 Background and basic premises ........................................................ 26 Analysing the future ......................................................................... 27 Organisation of the report ............................................................... 29 2 Sweden in transition ................................................... 33 Introduction ...................................................................................... 33 Sweden and the world, 1970 ............................................................. 33 Population change 1970-2010 .......................................................... 35 Changes in family patterns and gender equality 1970–2010 .......... 37 Educational changes and labour market establishment 1970– 2010 ........................................................................................... 39 Changes in the Swedish economy 1970–2010 ................................. 41 A different country ........................................................................... 48 7 Contents 3 The challenges of globalisation and technological development .............................................................. 49 Introduction ....................................................................................... 49 The globalisation of politics, economics and society ...................... 50 Technological development .............................................................. 63 The challenges ahead ......................................................................... 77 4 The challenges of sustainable growth ............................ 81 Introduction ....................................................................................... 81 The challenges of ecological development ....................................... 84 Ecosystem services and the valuation of natural capital ................. 93 Sweden and ecological sustainability ................................................ 98 Challenges – and new opportunities .............................................. 102 The road to a sustainable economy ................................................ 104 5 The challenges of demographic development ............... 107 Introduction ..................................................................................... 107 An ageing population ...................................................................... 109 A rising demographic dependency ratio ........................................ 112 Urbanisation and demographic development ................................ 116 Urbanisation and the demographic dependency ratio .................. 119 Demographic dependency ratio and increased dependency burden ..................................................................................... 124 Demographic development and future welfare ............................. 125 Demographic development and future skills provision ................ 128 Future welfare and a longer working life ......................................
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