The Swedish Model of Welfare State: Collapse or Adaptation?

In the paper, attempt was made to verify the not uncommon opinion about the collapse of the Swedish welfare state model. The first part of the paper was devoted to description of the Swedish model. Attention was drawn, among other things, to its features such as: the high level, universality and equality of social rights of all the citizens, the full employment policy and the solidaristic wage policy. Especially the Swedishmodel’s particularity, i.e. the very high level of social expenditures was stressed and, in this connection, their size, structure and financing sources were presented. Then, the principles of organization of the following areas of the social security were discussed: the pension system, the health care system, the labour market policy and the family and social aid policy. The next part of the paper was devoted to the development trends of the Swedish economy, with special regard to the economic growth rate, the productivity, the level of unemployment and the condition of public finance. In the last part of the paper, basing on the analysis made, conclusions were drawn in the key question formulated in the heading of the paper.