Welfare research
Like the other Nordic countries, Norway has a comprehensive and ambitious welfare state model. The welfare systems are designed to ensure security, equality, social equalization, and a minimum standard of living for all citizens. The welfare scheme contributes to reducing social differences and creates basic security for individuals, families and vulnerable groups. Safe societies and relatively small disparities between people are important for maintaining interpersonal trust and trust in political institutions. These are essential prerequisites for democracy and participation in communal life, and welfare schemes are a key element in this. Over the years, Fafo has built up an extensive research agenda on the organization of welfare services, welfare policy development and studies of living conditions in Norwegian society. We conduct research on inclusion and participation in working life and in other areas of social scientific enquiry, including a research portfolio devoted to senior employees’ policy and pension schemes. Our research also covers a broad and complex understanding of the conditions of vulnerable groups. Fafo contributes to knowledge development about various ways in which welfare services and welfare schemes can be maintained while remaining efficient, of high quality and run within a realistic financial framework. Fafo has a solid tradition for research on the encounters between users and the welfare services, and how social policy instruments affect people’s living conditions and quality of life. Our research questions are often practical and empirically oriented.

Forum for innovation in welfare services

The forum for innovation in welfare services is a professional meeting place for researchers, professionals, political and administrative decision-makers, ...

Poverty and social security

In the early 2000s, poverty was rediscovered as a social political issue in Norway. Since 2001, several action plans against poverty has been launched ...

Pensions

At Fafo a group of researchers are working on pensions and benefits, including retirement and disability pension ...

Active ageing policy at the workplace

At Fafo we study policies targeting older workers, and how such policies affect older workers’ labor market participation and retirement behaviour.

News about welfare and living conditions

New article on young outsiders in the EU South

Wednesday, 11 May 2022

Youth unemployment and precarity have been expanding in the aftermath of the recent global recession. This article, co-written by Anne Hege Strand, offers an empirical examination of the uneven expansion of young people "Not in Employment, Education or Training" (NEETs) between regions of Italy, Spain, Greece and Cyprus. The authors highlighted region, as well as gender, class, education and economic growth as key factors behind NEET statistics.

Social and economic organisation of begging migration from Romania to Norway

Monday, 04 April 2022

A new article by Guri Tyldum and Jon Horgen Friberg in International Migration describes how poor visitors from Romania gain access to information, loans and transport services, begging spots and safe places to sleep, as well as emotional and social support when they are in Oslo to beg.

New PhD: Kristin Dalen on views on welfare in China

Wednesday, 16 June 2021

On June 17, 2021 Kristin Dalen will defend her doctoral thesis for the PhD Degree at the University of Bergen. The title of the thesis is "Chinese Views on Welfare: Social Policy and Political Support".