Churches in Europe As Agents of Welfare – Sweden, Norway and Finland
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Churches in Europe as Agents of Welfare – Sweden, Norway and Finland Working Paper 2 from the Project Welfare and Religion in a European Perspective Volume 1 Editor: Anne Birgitta Yeung Co-editors: Ninna Edgardh Beckman, Per Pettersson Diakonivetenskapliga institutets skriftserie 11 The main sponsors of the project are The Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation, Diakonistiftelsen Samariterhemmet and the Faculty of Theology, Uppsala Univer- sity. Current information on the project is available at http://wrep.no-ip.info. Project office: Uppsala Institute for Diaconal and Social Studies (DVI) Samaritergränd 2 SE-753 19 Uppsala Phone +46 18 56 40 10 Web-address: www.dvi.nu E-mail: [email protected] © Authors and DVI 2006 ISSN 1404-2924 ISBN 91-974565-8-6 Typesetting: Helena Riihiaho Printed in Sweden by SLU Repro, Uppsala, 2006 Distributor: [email protected] Contents Anne Birgitta Yeung & Ninna Edgardh Beckman & Per Pettersson Researching the Changing European Landscape of Welfare and Religion ....1 Martha Middlemiss Divided by a common language: The benefits and problems created by linguistic diversity in a comparative European project.................................11 Ninna Edgardh Beckman & Thomas Ekstrand & Per Pettersson The Church of Sweden as an Agent of Welfare – the case of Gävle ............20 Olav Helge Angell & Trygve Wyller The Church of Norway as an Agent of Welfare – the case of Drammen .....86 Anne Birgitta Yeung The Finnish Lutheran Church as an Agent of Welfare – the case of Lahti....142 Contributors Dr Olav Helge Angell, Diakonhjemmet Høgskole, Oslo, Norway. [email protected] Dr Ninna Edgardh Beckman, Uppsala Institute for Diaconal and Social Studies, Uppsala, Sweden. [email protected] Dr Thomas Ekstrand, Uppsala University, Sweden. [email protected] Martha Middlemiss, MA, doctoral student, Uppsala Institute for Diaconal and Social Studies, Uppsala, Sweden. [email protected] Dr Per Pettersson, Service Research Center – CTF, Karlstad University, Karlstad, Sweden. [email protected] Professor Trygve Wyller, University of Oslo, Norway. [email protected] Adjunct Professor Anne Birgitta Yeung, University of Helsinki, Collegium for Ad- vanced Studies, Helsinki, Finland. [email protected] Researching the Changing European Landscape of Welfare and Religion ANNE BIRGITTA YEUNG &NINNA EDGARDH BECKMAN &PER PETTERSSON Welfare and Religion in a European perspective (WREP) is a research project study- ing the function of the historic majority churches as welfare agents in eight Euro- pean countries. The welfare function of the churches is analysed with analytical tools from sociology, theology and gender studies. The project is financed by The Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation and involves 24 researchers. It runs dur- ing 2003–2006 and focuses on Sweden, Finland, Norway, Germany, England, France, Italy, and Greece. This is the second working paper published in the project, in two volumes reporting core results of the eight case studies conducted in one middle sized town in each country. This introductory chapter gives a brief overview of the research questions, methods and material used in the project. Changing landscape of welfare and religion at local European level The future of welfare systems is high on the agenda in many countries all over the world and so also in Europe. The responsibilities of different agents in the welfare field are being debated. Simple models cannot be used to describe the present day European welfare pluralism. We live in the age of a welfare mix. There are several reasons for the particular debates on welfare. Advantages in medicine, pharmacology, health care, and a number of other factors have prolonged the average length of life in most countries. The growing number of elderly people, in combination with low birth rates, is an important issue on the political agenda in all European countries. Existing public welfare solutions are faced with financial pressures, because of the fact that the relative costs of all types of service production are increasing. In relation to the continuously reduced costs in goods production, the relative price of public welfare services increases because of the higher dependence on human resources in the production process. It is not possible to rationalise human interaction is in the same way as mechanical processes.1 Other factors are the national deregulations of state affairs on the one hand and new regional and global regulations linked to transnational structures, like EU and 1 Ingelstam 1995, Pettersson 2000. Diakonivetenskapliga institutets skriftserie 11 1 Churches in Europe as Agents of Welfare – Sweden, Norway and Finland the IMF,2 on the other hand. These transnational organisations put pressure on wel- fare systems where states are involved as major agents. At the same time as existing welfare solutions are questioned, new forms of social problems and poverty appear in all countries, not least in Europe, as effects of economic and social changes linked to globalisation and migration.3 The division of roles between different agents in providing welfare has changed over time, as well as between different parts of Europe.4 Family and relatives have historically been the main agents providing assistance for individuals in need. Dur- ing the industrial expansion period in the nineteenth century voluntary organisations based on altruistic social support grew up in many new settlements. These organisa- tions were often linked in some way to churches. In the twentieth century the idea of a strong social state dominated in northern Europe and an expanding public sector liberated the family from many of their traditional responsibilities and also took over many of the activities organised by voluntary agents. The social responsibilities of private companies also varies according to context. Sometimes they provide impor- tant social security benefits for their employees and sometimes welfare services on a commercial basis. Family, voluntary organisations, the public sector and private business in this way constitute four social sectors involved in the provision of wel- fare services (Figure 1). Family/relatives Public sector (State, Local authorities) WELFARE SERVICES Voluntary organisations (Non-profit/Altrustic Private business organisations, Social economy) Figure 1. Four sectors in the provision of welfare services. It is impossible to understand Europe without acknowledging the role of the Chris- tian majority Churches. Still dominant on the religious scene they have historically served as providers of medical care, charity and education, but also contributed to the European understanding of solidarity and social responsibility. Furthermore, even today the churches have, in various manners effect on – and play various roles in – all the four sectors providing welfare. The churches sometimes co-operate with private business, they have manifold relations to individuals’ family lives, they play 2 IMF = International Monetary Fund. 3 Castells 1998, 2000, Hoogvelt 2001. 4 Cf. Jeppsson Grassman 2004; Bäckström & Beckman & Pettersson 2004. 2 Diakonivetenskapliga institutets skriftserie 11 Researching the Changing European Landscape of Welfare and Religion versatile roles in the social economy, and they also are interlinked, in some places much more closely than others, with the public services. Additionally, Europe has traditionally been pictured as a classical example of the secularisation thesis.5 However, lately it has become more and more evident in so- ciological research on religion that European religiosity has not vanished – nor will it vanish in the perceivable future.6 The present-day European religious landscape is often described as privatised and the interest for individual spirituality may even be increasing.7 Moreover, the European churches in many countries have during recent years, and in the 1990s, taken novel public roles, for instance in defending the rights of marginalised individuals.8 The present-day role of the majority churches in wel- fare is truly an intricate topic of resarch. A number of questions arise in relation to the ongoing challenges to the organisa- tion of welfare. What is the actual role played today by the different churches? Which tasks do they have, as providers of welfare? How do they influence welfare at a normative level, in the formation of underlying values and in public debate? Which expectations do they meet from the population and authorities? Welfare regimes in relation to church traditions and gender patterns In late modern secularised Europe the role of the majority churches differs consid- erably from country to country, depending on the respective theological traditions, but also on the shape of the welfare organisation in the country. In Northern Europe, where the state and the public authorities have the overall responsibility for welfare, what is expectated of the Churches is minimal. In Southern Europe individuals in need are often reliant on families and kin, with the Churches as an important com- plement. In Germany voluntary organisations, including the Churches, execute a significant part of the welfare services decided upon by the “Sozialstaat”.9 Depending on how responsibility is divided between different agents, the welfare systems in Europe can be divided into different ideal types of so called “welfare regimes”.10 In the WREP-project a typology of four ideal types is used: a Nordic Social-Democratic model, a continental