ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the pension system and the National Insurance (Folketrygden) as a normative institution of central importance to the Norwegian welfare state. The National Insurance system of Norway is taken to be representative of the Nordic elements of universalism and social insurance redistributive schemes of income security in old age. The National Insurance is seen as founded on different normative principles, on different understandings of fairness as concerns distributive justice that together encompass a robust whole. A focus on pension provision in normative terms means addressing the question of how to share burdens and goods in a fair way by constructing institutions that provide legitimacy to outcomes and procedures of these institutions.
