Research project Between free and unfree labour. Labour market relations and the welfare society in Sweden 1880-2022

This project offers a new understanding of how, under which circumstances and why different forms and degrees of coercive regulations and practices have shaped the labor market and working conditions in Sweden. Focusing on how the Swedish labor market model has affected and been affected by the relationship between free labor and unfree labor, it analyses both subtle and concrete forms on unfree labor and how these have been generated, upheld and contested by state actors, trade unions, employers’ associations and affected workers. 

The study is conducted by a multidisciplinary group of researchers and consists of four subprojects, spanning from 1880s until the present. Together, the subprojects shed light on different economic and political contexts and sectors in which unfree aspects have been motivated to meet social challenges such as vagrancy; the threat of war; unemployment and; an increasing marginalization of groups with weak labor market positions.