Author: Hallvard Lavoll

Coordinator(s): Cathrine Egeland and Ida Drange (Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway)

The Nordic Labour Markets display similar characteristics with regard to high female employment rates and part time employment, gender segregated labour markets and a large public service sector. The Nordic countries also face demographic changes towards a growing elderly population not in employment, but dependent on welfare income. Globalization of labour and capital, technological development and innovation all impact the Nordic labour markets, at the same time as the regulation and co-ordination in Nordic economies and labour markets, with centralized wage bargaining, employee protection legislation and organized labour on both the employer- employee side have implications for how these trends impact in the Nordic context. Furthermore, the education level and competence requirements are high, at the same time as the Nordic countries face challenges with regard to inclusion of individuals with low or no formal qualifications.

This session welcomes papers that address specific trends and challenges in the Nordic labour markets, and how it affects changes in work and labour markets with regard to qualifications, health, occupations, innovation, economy, identity, social inequality, work place organization and culture and more.

Coordinator(s): Senior Researcher Lars Dommermuth (Statistics Norway)

In the aftermath of the great recession in 2008, a strong decline in fertility rates has been observed in many western societies, including the Nordic countries. This fertility decline persists until today and the Nordic countries have switched from being societies with the highest fertility levels in Europe to be around or below the average. In recent years, the total fertility rate has reached a historic low in several of the Nordic countries. The great recession may has initiated this development, but since several years, most macro-economic indicators have indicated an upswing. Thus, popular theories about the negative impact of economic recessions on fertility are not able to explain the current development. Further, the Nordic countries are commonly defined as a kind of role model for a modern labour market and family policy, promoting a dual-earner breadwinner model for parent and an active role for fathers in childcare. This context has commonly been described as an important basis for the comparative high fertility levels in the Nordic countries. However, no drastic cuts or changes in family policies that could explain this decline in fertility were undertaken in recent years.

The societal response to this development has been controversial. Policy makers expressed their concerns for the future of the welfare state. Some economists agreed with this perspective, while other pointed out the general costs of childrearing for societies. And environmental activist emphasized that a decreasing population is good news in times of climate change. But a decline in fertility rates is not only highly relevant on a societal level. The decision to have or not to have a child, is still one of the most important markers in the individual life course. Therefore, a sociological perspective on possible underlying mechanisms of this development is strongly required. Is the decline in fertility an expression of a value change among young adults in the Nordic countries? Do young adults nowadays perceive individual or societal insecurity, preventing them to realize their childbearing intentions? Can we observe a new class divide in the family formation process in the social-democratic Nordic welfare states?

This session calls for new research addressing the causes and consequences of the recent fertility decline in the Nordic countries. Contributions can range across levels of analysis, from macro-level analysis of the impact of global insecurity, to cross-national or regional value changes and to the perceptions of individuals and families in times of transformations. Beside analysis on fertility and childbearing intentions, also contributions related to new trends in union formation and relationship stability, which can affect the occurrence and timing of childbearing, can be submitted to this session.

Coordinator(s): Rebecca Lund (University of Oslo, Norway) Ann Christin Nilsen (University of Agder, Norway) and May-Linda Magnussen (University of Agder, Norway)

Institutional Ethnography is a method of inquiry, originally developed by Canadian sociologist Dorothy Smith (1987; 2005), to explicate the institutional organization of social interaction. It has since then been taken up and developed around the world, including the Nordic countries – used particularly (but not only) to study social relations within the welfare state and welfare state institutions; including the effects of reform and ruling discourse on professionals, users and clients.

The inquiry, not unlike other forms of ethnographic qualitative inquiry, starts from everyday experience and action, but it asks different questions, aiming at “keeping institutions in view.” This makes it possible to move from experiential accounts of everyday life to understand how these have been shaped in text mediated ruling relations.

For this session we invite empirical investigations drawing on or inspired by Institutional Ethnography. We also invite papers that focus on theoretical and/or methodological explorations and discussions of Institutional Ethnography. We hope that this session will provide PhD students an opportunity to present and receive feedback on work-in-progress, but also welcome contributions from scholars seeking to develop research proposals or manuscripts for publication.

It is not a requirement, for participating in this session, that you are well-versed in Institutional Ethnography beforehand. We do, however, expect an interest in exploring the premises and promises of using Institutional Ethnography.

Coordinator(s): Anne Skevik Grødem and Ragni Hege Kitterød (Institute for Social Research, Oslo, Norway)

Population ageing is a growing concern in most industrialised countries, including the Nordics. One proposed way to alleviate the challenges associated with ageing is to encourage longer working careers, i.e. later retirement. Initiatives to achieve this aim include rising retirement ages (or lower pensions for those who retire early), special advantages for workers who remain employed past a certain age (e.g. longer holidays or bonuses), and managerial programs to improve organisations’ abilities to retain older workers. Prolonging working lives however implies challenging established notions of the life course, and of who can and ought to be a worker. Such reconfigurations may be motivated by financial concerns, but they have sociological implications. These implications have yet to be fully understood. A lot of work remains in order to fully understand how, and to what extent, the normative life course changes in the face of changing expectations, the implications of later retirement for family relationships, patterns of inequality in retirement, and the position of seniors in rapidly changing Nordic labour markets.

We invite contributions on (but not limited to) the following topics:

• Retirement decisions: what factors influence when seniors retire (full-time or part-time)?
• Retirement transitions: how do individuals cope with this major life transition, and how does this vary by gender, family situation and (former) position in the labour market?
• Seniors’ adaptations in the workplace: how do seniors think about / what are seniors’ practices with regard to skills improvement, change of jobs, movement into / out of management positions? Has this changed over time?
• The concerns, and practices, of employers in the face of an ageing labour force
• Senior employees’ level of information about the pension system and their own future pensions, to what extent they seek information and where (if at all) they find it
• The impact of special advantages targeted at seniors, such as bonuses or extra holidays
• Forms of ageism, the prevalence of ageism and its effect on senior’ working careers and quality of life
• Impacts of technological change, work-place reorganisation and labour migration on retirement decisions
• Inequalities in pensions (present and projected future) in the light of gender, immigrant background, disability, atypical employment and flexible careers

Coordinator(s): Laura Maria Führer and Sabina Tica (Department of sociology and human geography, University of Oslo, Norway)

Across the Nordic region, whiteness is bound up with naturalized national belonging, whereas non-white bodies are often read as ‘bodies out of place’. This being said, racialization is far from a uniform social process. For example, (non-) whiteness acquires meaning in different ways across national contexts, various social arenas, and in interaction with other categories of difference (class, gender, sexuality, etc.). Furthermore, there is considerable debate among scholars as to how racialization should be defined and theorized. One way to remedy this is by discussing various empirical cases.

This session investigates:

1) Empirical case studies that shed light on the construction of (non-) whiteness in different local contexts and in relation to various social categories.

2) How these processes can be conceptualized and theorized.

We welcome papers addressing questions such as: How does (non-) whiteness function in different contexts (e.g. sports, schools, political organisations, fields of art, etc.)? Regarding racialization, what are commonalities across Nordic countries, and what are idiosyncrasies of national or local cases? Which theoretical concepts – such as racialization, race, visibility, phenotype, and whiteness – are most analytically promising for different empirical cases?

Coordinator(s): Rune Ellefsen (Faculty of law, University of Oslo, Norway) and Sebastian Svenberg (The School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences, Örebro Universitet

2019 marked a remarkable international wave of large-scale social movement mobilizations, across diverse issues and socio-political contexts. Nordic sociology have for a long time engaged in analysis of social movements, protest events and the like, but at times with a lack of dialogue among different scholars and perspectives. This session seeks to gather empirical and conceptual contributions on the sociology of social movements and the protest repertoire.

We welcome contributions on a range of issues, formats and approaches. For example, papers on case studies of specific movement mobilizations, the outcomes of social movements, or the responses by governments to social movements that pose a substantial political challenge.

In relation to the overall topic of this year’s conference, papers addressing the following questions would also be of particular relevance: What role does social movements and protest play in ongoing conflicts and social transformations? How does global contentious issues manifest differently across local social movement mobilizations and uses of protest repertoires?

Both qualitative and quantitative works are sought for this session, as well as studies of any geographical context, historical or contemporary movements, spanning from primarily non-violent ones to movements that also employ violent repertoires. The width of contributions in the field of social movement studies can contribute to crucial discussions on the overall topic of this year’s conference.

Coordinator(s): Lars Mjøset (Department of sociology and human geography, University of Oslo, Norway) Kristian Berg Harpviken (Peace Research Institute Oslo, Norway)

35 years ago, Theda Skocpol edited “Vision and method in historical sociology”. The volume contained introductions to 5 European scholars (Marc Bloch, Karl Polanyi, Reinhard Bendix, Perry Anderson, E.P. Thompson) and 4 American scholars (S. N. Eisenstadt, Charles Tilly, Immanuel Wallerstein, Barrington Moore).

This panel invites papers on where this tradition stands today. Papers could discuss other scholars, either more recent ones (such as Michael Mann, Francis Fukuyama, Acemoglou & Robinson) or scholars that might have been included even in the Skocpol volume (for example, what about Stein Rokkan?). But even more importantly, we invite substantive analyses that develop one or more of the current macro-historical frameworks, responding to research questions that are relevant today.