ABSTRACT
As a result of the economic and political changes in the 1990s, the Swedish welfare state now faces a serious challenge to the sustained public provision of welfare services, namely the threat to the declining quality of public services, due primarily to the rapid deterioration of the work environment of the frontline staff providing such services. They are the women working in the municipalities and counties that provide most of the welfare services that most citizens rely on, if not depend upon, in an advanced service society. This is partially a result of sharp cutbacks in public funds and staff during the 1990s, a period of prolonged austerity. It is also a result of numerous organizational changes, in part related to the introduction of greater market mechanisms, in order to improve efficiency in the public sector. However, the other side of the coin is a rapidly deteriorating work environment and rampant growth of high-stress jobs, dramatically increasing sick leave, disability and early retirement, all in the public sector, as well as declining quality in many welfare services.
