Today, Norway, Sweden and Denmark are lauded for their social welfare programs. Each nation consistently ranks among the highest in terms of literacy levels, life expectancy, overall quality of life and happiness. However, there is another side to these welfare systems, from eugenics- and anti-immigration-driven programs to the very adaptability of the economic system itself, that sees little investigation. Three works, Alternatives for Welfare Policy, by Torben M. Andersen and Per Molander, Eugenics and the Welfare State, by Gunnar Broberg and Nils Roll-Hansen and Immigration Policy and the Scandinavian Welfare State by Grete Brochmann and Anniken Hagelund, seek to shed light on the darker aspects of the Scandinavian social welfare state, breaking the pattern of more revisionist scholarship.

Broberg and Roll-Hansen begin Eugenics and the Welfare State by challenging the role that strong central planning played in population control. Eugenics-based programs arrived long before 1940, and the Nazi regime did little to influence any of the Scandinavian policies (EWS, 6-7). By the early 1920s all three nations had both marriage laws and legislation allowing for the sterilization of criminals or other “degenerates”. Out of these “reform eugenics” of the early 20th century, the legalized practice of sterilization became a form of conservative birth control, linked to progressive causes like social improvement and the prevention of sexual crimes(EWS, 260).

The history of eugenics raises questions regarding the links between science, politics, population policies and the rights of the individual. It was not until after World War II that each nation slowly phased the practices from use, and prior to the rise of National Socialism, the very notion of eugenics in social policy raised few questions. Simply put, the use of Eugenics was “a continuation of the enlightenment view of… social and economic  planning based on science” as the “motor of social progress” (EWS, 270). As the notion of Social Welfare was also, arguably, a product of Enlightened ideas, the practice of forced sterilization proved a valuable tool in maintaining the health and homogeneity of the population.

In a similar vein, Grete Brochmann and Anniken Hagelund pose the question of the legitimacy and the longevity of the homogeneous welfare state in their work, Immigration Policy and the Scandinavian Welfare State. The entire premise of the Scandinavian welfare state operates under the assumptions that high employment serves to both “finance welfare and reduce public spending” (IPSWS, 5), and that the system is universal for all citizens. Thus, those living within as non-citizens are seen as taking advantage of the very system that, through exclusive and poor multicultural policy, prevents their inclusion into Scandinavian society (IPSWS, 4).

Due to the fact that Scandinavia opened its boarders to immigrants in the late 1960s and early 1970s, provisions for a multicultural society were not written into the modern welfare state that was created in the immediate aftermath of World War II. Recent surveys show the Scandinavian nations at the bottom of the spectrum in terms of immigrant integration into the workforce, as well as an increase in multicultural conflicts (IPSWS, 229). In all three countries, immigrants have become a “social problem”, straining the precarious balance of population, participation and taxation that keeps the system afloat (IPSWS, 237, 130).

Immigration integration is similarly critiqued in Torben M. Andersen’ and Per Molander’s Alternatives for Welfare Policy. There is fear that a cycle has developed, in that the universality of the welfare systems makes Scandinavia a “welfare magnate”, but also causes a sort of “wealth-drain”, wherein successful citizens chose to leave in order to escape the rising taxes (AWP, 101). This cyclical trouble, is, as Andersen and Molander argue, the product of the conflict between rigid policies necessitated by the state and the increasingly globalized nature of Scandinavia.

With their entrance into the OECD, as well as Denmark’s entrance into the European Union, the closed borders that perpetuated the success of the welfare state were challenged by internationalism, increased immigration and conflicting EU and global policy (AWP, 347). While Anderson and Molander evaluate the status of the welfare state through more empirical data than historical analysis, the numbers do not lie. The Scandinavian nations face a steep climb to remain economically prosperous due to the number of social programs they currently provide to a changing population demographic. No longer homogeneous, and with a rapidly aging workforce, the longevity of the true universal Scandinavian system is being called into question.

While the quality of living in Scandinavia today remains high, the history of the universal welfare state is not without its dark marks. With globalization and changing demographics putting increasing amounts of pressure on the three systems, the economic health of the three nations is in jeopardy. The carefully-worded history of a homogenous Scandinavia is also being challenged, as it whitewashes the state’s role in birth control, race control and anti-immigration sentiment. These three texts shed light on potential answers to the main issues, immigration, integration and economic longevity, that Scandinavia faces today, they also differ from popular discourse that praises the Social Welfare state as a model of progress and modernity.

Works:

Andersen, Torben M. and Per Molander, ed. Alternatives for Welfare Policy: Coping with Internationalism and Demographic Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.

Broberg, Gunnar and Nils Roll-Hansen, ed. Eugenics and the Welfare State: Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2005.

Brochmann, Grete and Anniken Hagelund, ed. Immigration Policy and the Scandinavian Welfare State, 1945-2010. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. E-Book Edition.