ABSTRACT
Poverty is a long-standing social issue in Denmark, Finland, Norway, Iceland and Sweden. For centuries, large parts of the population in the Nordic countries had to struggle hard for survival as, until the last hundred years, the general standard of living was low in these predominantly agrarian economies. The public provision of income support was only rudimentary and consisted of stringently means-tested poor relief to the destitute who could not work. This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book studies how poverty has developed. The first question addressed in this book is how the extent of poverty or low income has changed over time in the Nordic countries. The second question is who the poor are in the various Nordic countries. Finally, the book explores how poverty at the individual level appears when the observation period is enlarged to cover a larger number of years.
