Dimitris Michailakis

Detta är en förstudie baserad på sekundära data om förekomsten av fattiga pensionärer. Statliga utredningar, ansvariga myndigheter, fackliga och pensionärsorganisationer har behandlat frågan om pensionernas tillräcklighet i det nya pensionssystemet. De olika källorna kommer inte alltid fram till likartade slutsatser eftersom pension kan beräknas med olika inkomstslag och vid olika tidpunkter och fattigdom kan definieras på olika sätt. Strävan här är att tydliggöra tendenserna, att ge en helhetsbild och att ringa in ett potentiellt växande socialt problem. Gruppen pensionärer återfinns i alla delar av inkomstfördelningen. Det är de fattiga, blivande fattiga, som är i fokus här.Förstudien inleder med beskrivning av det s.k. reformerade pensionssystemet som innebar ett byte från ett förmånsbaserat system med generösa villkor och tre typer av pensioner till ett avgiftsbaserat system enligt en livsinkomstprincip. De argument som framhölls när pensionsreformen presenterades redovisas. Likaså redovisas justeringar som genomförts, bl.a. införande av ett förlängt arbetsliv. Kritiken mot pensionssystemet som växt fram under det senaste decenniet går i huvudsak ut på att pensionens andel i förhållande till slutlönen har blivit mycket lägre än vad som utlovades. Trots ett långt arbetsliv räcker inte den allmänna inkomstpensionen till för många inkomsttagare, särskilt för kvinnor i låginkomstyrken. Många behöver garantipension som ett tillägg. Att arbeta fler år innan pensionering är inte heller ett alternativ för de med slitsamma yrken framhåller fackliga organisationer.Förstudien redogör för vilka grupper som lämnar arbetslivet tidigt eller sent och vilka grupper som kommer att leva med magra ekonomiska resurser vid högre ålder. Det är en mycket liten andel svenska pensionärer som lever i absolut fattigdom tack vare den s.k. grundtryggheten garantipension och bostadstillägg medan andelen som lever i relativ fattigdom är drygt 15 procent. Det finns också ett stort pensionsgap mellan kvinnor och män, större än i andra skandinaviska länder. Förstudien redovisar mått som används för att fastställa hur mycket en person behöver för att klara sig vilka används som riktmärke för existensminimum eller skälig levnadsnivå.Avslutningsvis diskuteras det nya pensionssystemet som en lösning för välfärdsstaten ur ekonomisk aspekt och en legitimitetsaspekt. För välfärdsstaten innebär övergången ekonomiska lättnader. Det nya pensionssystemet kan också analyseras som en övergång från jämlikhet i resultat till jämlikhet i möjligheter.

The introduction of the Affordable Care Act in the United States, the increasing use of prescription drugs, and the alleged abuse of racial profiling by police are just some of the factors contributing to twenty-first-century social problems. The Cambridge Handbook of Social Problems offers a wide-ranging roster of the social problems currently pressing for attention and amelioration. Unlike other works in this area, it also gives great consideration to theoretical and methodological discussions. This Handbook will benefit both undergraduate and graduate students eager to understand the sociology of social problems. It is suitable for classes in social problems, current events, and social theory. Featuring the most current research, the Handbook provides an especially useful resource for sociologists and graduate students conducting research.

This article contributes to the interdisciplinary study of loneliness among older people with some insights based on Luhmann's systems theory. We argue that loneliness is a consequence of the way society includes/excludes people. In contrast to traditional societies, modern society forces people to act as individuals. In order to prevent loneliness, individuals themselves must search for membership in functionally diffuse collectivities (couple relations, friendships, communities). Luhmann's theory provides the framework to integrate the findings of empirical research. We claim that older people are more prone to loneliness for three reasons: first, after retirement they lose their performance role, which limits access to informal communities. Second, because they suffer from illness, impairment and a lack of resources more often than younger people, their access to functionally diffuse collectivities is impeded. Finally, because of structural and semantic changes in the family system, older people often find themselves at the margins of families. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

This article offers a theoretical framework for studying loneliness among older people from a social problems perspective. The framework combines the constructionist approach to social problems (Spector and Kitsuse) and systems theory (Luhmann). Based on the first approach, we understand the social problem of loneliness among older people to be the result of claims-making activities by different key actors. These activities are guided by underlying moralities, causalities and solutions. With the second approach, we can explain how social problems are framed differently within different social systems. The proposed framework is primarily aimed at researchers studying social (in contrast to bio-medical or psychological) aspects of loneliness among older people. It helps not only to guide research designs in order to address conflicting perspectives, rationalities and interests but also to enable researchers to grasp fully how ‘loneliness among older people’ is attributed (potentially shifting) meanings through communicative acts by influential stakeholders in the ‘social problems industry‘. Combining constructionism and Luhmann's theory also helps to interpret and explain concrete claims-making concerning loneliness as a social problem. The argument in this article is illustrated via three different social systems: medicine, religion and economy. Loneliness among older people appears to be something different from each of these perspectives: as a matter of health and illness, of spirituality, and of incentives and commodities, respectively.

Social work builds its identity on social problems. The goal is to generate knowledge about causes, consequences and solutions. However, there is a lack of theory of social problems. We suggest that research on social problems can benefit by ‘bringing the observer in’: Loseke's constructionist framework and Luhmann's systems theory. According to Loseke, social problems appear differently when constructed by different observers. Constructions vary in terms of morality, conditions, victims/villains and solutions. From Luhmann we learn that modern society consists of a multitude of social systems (e.g. politics, science, economy etc.), each operating with their own communicative codes. Combining both approaches, we hypothesise that any social system constructs its own (version of) social problems. Illustrating with the empirical case ‘suicide among mentally ill people’, we examine how a phenomenon is constructed differently as a social problem by four different social systems: the disability movement, politics, medicine and social work.

Although the concept of social exclusion is central to the academic discipline of social work, there is not much theoretical clarity about what it actually means. For instance, exclusion is used as a synonym for poverty, marginalization, detachment, unemployment, or solitude. We argue that the systems-theoretical framework developed by the German social theorist Niklas Luhmann (1927–1997) provides the conceptual tools to understand inclusion and exclusion in a theoretically adequate way that is highly relevant to Social Work. Since there is scarcely any literature on Luhmann's work in the field of social work not written in German, this article aims to provide a systematic introduction to the Luhmannian theory of society with respect to the distinction of inclusion/exclusion and its relation to social work to an English-speaking audience. After a presentation of some basic concepts, it will be argued that exclusion is not a problem per se nor is inclusion always and per se unproblematic. The Luhmannian approach suggests that inclusion and exclusion are operations of social systems that treat human beings as relevant addresses for communication. Against that background, systems theory gives a clear and accurate description of what social work can (and cannot) do in terms of inclusion/exclusion. The main purpose of social work is exclusion management. Exclusion management involves working on the social addresses of individuals with the aim of improving their attractiveness for other social systems, a (re)orientation towards being includable. It appears in three forms: exclusion prevention, inclusion mediation, and exclusion administration.

Medical priority-setting has been discussed heatedly in Sweden since the 1990s. While criteria such as medical need, solidarity and cost-effectiveness were established long ago, they failed to give clear directives to decision-makers on how to apportion priority. The notion of individual responsibility for one’s health was suggested as one solution out of the impasse. According to the responsibility principle, anyone who fails to live up to the norms of a healthy lifestyle can legitimately be given lower priority. Although the principle is gaining support, its effectiveness is being hampered by structural problems. We have analysed official reports and pertinent fora of the Swedish debate on priority-setting from the period 1990–2009 and have examined the responsibility principle using a Luhmannian framework. Unlike common criticism emphasizing difficulties of assessing whether individuals can actually be held accountable for their lifestyle, we found that the responsibility principle fails in its current form because it unifies two incompatible logics deeply rooted in the functionally differentiated structure of society: those of medical reasoning (connecting health condition with lifestyle) and political expediency (attributing responsibility). We conclude that future policy-making cannot simply overlook this conflict, but has to acknowledge its presence and constructively utilize its potential.

In recent years, the notion of individual responsibility for one’s health has been introduced into Swedish medico‐political debate. Formerly expressed as a recommendation, it has now taken on the form of expectations. In a Swedish context, this shift from collective to individual responsibility is novel because it implies a break with well‐established welfare state practice of comprehensive care for their citizens. Using a systems‐theoretical approach, we interpret this shift of expectations as a political solution to the problem of legitimate allocation of scarce resources. A more inclusive medical conception of illness has facilitated the introduction of many new diagnoses that, in turn, have lead to a strong increase in claims for medical treatment and for compensation. This semantic change in medicine aggravates the budgetary situation of the welfare state. The political solution lies in a reorientation of the expectations the medical system can have on citizens as well as a shift of the expectations regarding the rights and obligations citizens can have on the medical system. Individuals are increasingly expected to live healthy lifestyles and to avoid hazardous habits. If they do not live up to these expectations, they have to face low prioritisation or denial of treatment.

Inclusive education is the attempt to educate persons with intellectual disabilities by integrating them as closely as possible into the normal structures of the educational system. As this necessitates various kinds of “inclusion through selective exclusion” (partial exemption from grades, special classes, special treatment by teachers, etc.), inclusive education is inherently faced by tensions. Drawing on sociological systems theory, we argue that these tensions can be assigned to three levels of the educational system – the level of the functional macrosystem of education, the level of the organization and the level of the individual (classroom) interaction. Analyzed in this way, it becomes possible to see that the dilemmas of inclusive education result from tensions between the three levels – e.g., inclusion into normal educational organizations requires exclusion from certain functions of the macrosystem of education and so on. The tensions themselves cannot be fully resolved, but they can certainly be addressed in ways that may be more satisfactory to individuals with special educational needs.