NORWAY
Research
(Sources: David Ellwood’s 2003 site visit, Jon Hippe’s presentation on Fafo during Harvard Inequality Summer Institute June 19, 2004, and Fafo’s website)
Fafo Institute for Labour and Social Research aims at providing research-based knowledge to government, labor unions, corporations, and NGOs, with a particular interest in governing systems, markets, and democratic systems. Fafo cooperates with public agencies, ministries, companies and civil society actors. Fafo, which was originally founded by the Norwegian Federation of Trade Unions in 1982, became an independent foundation in 1993, funded jointly by organized labor and six multinational corporations. Now the center’s funding comes from its own foundation monies, government support, and project work.
Fafo places heavy research emphasis on labor markets and welfare state reforms as well as issues of immigration and integration. The institute explores inequality from an institutional perspective, asking how key social actors function, with a focus on quantitative data, often relying on surveys that they conduct themselves. They have excellent longitudinal registry data, which has tracked Norwegians’ income, social assistance, family and other data since 1992, as well as firm level data on income and living and working conditions. Fafo can offer Inequality Fellows a wide field of research interests, including issues of immigration, adult education, gender relations, family-friendly workplace policies and comparative labor institutions, among others.
Fafo employs about 50 researchers. Most of them are sociologists, political scientists and anthropologists, but there are also a few economists, and one psychologist.
Fafo has links to faculty of the University of Oslo and carries out joint projects with other leading Norwegian research centers, such as the Institute for Social Research (ISF), the Norwegian Social Research Institute (NOVA), and the Advanced Research Institute on the Europeanization of the Nation State (ARENA). Fafo is not only known for its research activities, but also as the home of the Israeli-Palestinian Oslo Agreements.
FAFO research groups
Fafo is divided into five research groups, all of which offer exciting research opportunities for Inequality Fellows.
WORK and SOCIAL POLICY
The goal of this research group, which works on national and comparative projects, is to understand the interplay between labor market and welfare policies. Current research focuses on income and assistance dynamics, ethnic differences, measurement and normative questions, services to the homeless, pensions and retirement, a comparison of Nordic and Baltic welfare states, and strategies for creating an inclusive labor market.
Research areas
> Social meaning of poverty and social exclusion in advanced welfare states
> Welfare state development in comparative perspective
> What are the opportunities and preconditions for labor market participation for disadvantaged social groups?
> How does the labor market function as an arena for the distribution of social benefits?
Datasets
This research group uses detailed living standard surveys collected in many geographic areas, including Eastern Europe, Gaza, the West Bank and Jordan, South Africa, and Western China. They also use highly detailed individual, longitudinal data using tax and benefit registry data in Norway from 1992 onward.
INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS, EMPLOYMENT and LABOR MARKET REGULATION
This research group, which carries out comparative studies on an international level, also organizes the National Work and Enterprise survey, which is a large-scale company-based survey on inequality at the workplace. It focuses on larger institutional actors and on industrial relations systems, exploring how they are shaped and how they themselves shape working conditions and labor markets.
Research areas
> Collective bargaining, dispute resolution, trade unions and employer organizations
> Changes in labor markets, wages and working conditions
> Impact of globalization and European integration on employment relations
> Renewal of labor market regulation in a comparative perspective
> Effects of part-time work
IMMIGRATION and INTEGRATION OF LABOR
This research group conducts in-depth, survey-based analyses of social inequality in Oslo’s inner city. It also carries out projects studying new public policy approaches to integrate the labor market and welfare and integration policies by different Norwegian ministries. This group has used the Norwegian living standard surveys to show how different immigrant groups fare, and they were directly involved in the development of the new one-year integration program for immigrants on public assistance. While their focus is on quantitative research, they are comfortable with qualitative work as well. Their current research projects include:
> Union membership among immigrants and the motivation and expectations of membership
> Consequences of poverty and coping strategies among immigrants
> Communication between schools and parents
> Improvement of qualifications of immigrants in an inclusive labor market, in particular how to motivate immigrants’ labor market participation and questions of the normative basis for integration
> European Union Enlargement in May 2004
LIFELONG LEARNING, VOCATIONAL EDUCATION and SKILL FORMATION AT WORK
This research group carries out national and comparative studies in continuing education, lifelong learning, non-formal and work-based learning, and labor market and skills needs, especially for workers in industries that experience decline. It is involved in evaluating Norway’s “Competitive Reform,” a tri-partide effort of organized labor, business and government initiated in the 1990’s to give all adults access to free education, educational leave, certification for later learning and “social” learning, etc. This reform understands continuing education as a means of preventing exclusion from the labor market and as a way to reduce class differences related to inequalities in education. This group also studies European integration and employment strategies on a large scale.
Datasets
The group collects detailed data on companies and individuals and these data can be matched. Currently, they are trying to obtain funding for a broad survey of participants and non-participants in life-long learning.
ENTERPRISE DEVELOPMENT
This research group studies market developments, technological change, corporate responsibility and new types of employer-employee partnerships. Their interest also lies in researching new types of corporate ownership and their links to productivity and other industrial behaviors. This group has recently collaborated with Richard Freeman from the Economics Department at Harvard to examine how different types of employment relationships affect productivity. They are analyzing mechanisms for shifting risks between employers and works. In Norway, employers currently bear most of the risks, in contrast to the U.S.
Datasets
The datsets available at Fafo include a recent dataset on the material conditions of families with children and datasets on the living conditions of immigrants, time series labor force surveys, and registry data. One can follow individual social assistance trajectories, sickness, maternity, and employment.
Inequality Fellows need to email Anne Jensen, Fafo’s Executive Assistant at anne.Jensen@fafo.no about two months before their arrival to let her know what dataset/s they need. Anne will then apply for use of these datasets for a limited amount of time. Data from Statistics Norway is free and easily accessible. The Norwegian Social Science Data Services (NSD) owns regional data, individual-level data, and data on the political system.
Practical information
Accommodation
Inequality Fellows’ main administrative contact at Fafo is Anne Jensen, Fafo’s Executive Assistant. Email: anne.Jensen@fafo.no. Phone: + 47 22088721. For help with accommodation, Fellows are advised to email Anne, who will give them the name of the person at the Foundation for Student Life in Oslo they need to contact for renting a student apartment.
Health insurance
The US State Department provides extensive information on health insurance for Americans traveling abroad.
Office space and computer access
Inequality Fellows will have both office space and computer access at Fafo.
Timing
Norwegians typically go on vacation in July. Since June is an extremely busy month, Fafo advises Inequality Fellows to avoid June and July for research placements at Fafo.
Transportation
Visa information
US citizens staying in Norway as tourists for less than 90 days do not need a visa to enter Norway. For the latest visa-related information, visit the websites of the US State Department and the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Washington, DC.
(Source: Katrin Križ’ site visit in spring 2004)
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