ABSTRACT
This is a book about the labour markets and the institutional frameworks that condition how they function in four countries: Canada, the United States, Denmark and Sweden. In the last decades, the world economy has undergone significant social and economic transformations, and the four countries in our study have been profoundly affected by these. Since our examples represent rather different societal models, we may ask whether they have been affected in the same way. Their differing socio-economic institutions can be expected to have some impact on these changes. North America is generally characterised as liberal and market-directed and Scandinavia as social democratic and welfare state oriented. A crucial question is what this means for the development of their labour markets. However, there are also important differences between Canada and the United States on the one hand and between Denmark and Sweden on the other. We may therefore more carefully examine what nation-specific patterns exist or remain in a world that seems to become more and more subjected to a common social and economic development. What do different national traditions and institutions mean in such a world?
