Suchergebnisse

'Public health' investigates the determinants of health, born during the Enlightenment in the seventeenth/eighteenth century. But 'public health' is also policies, aiming at the improvement of a population's health. There is a mutual interchange between public health as science and as politics. A brief historical background is followed by an analysis of the impacts of political changes during the first two decades of the twenty first century in Sweden. In 2005, a policy document accepted by all political parties except for the Moderate Party highlighted socio-economic factors and structural reforms to decrease the health gaps in the population. The general election in September 2006 resulted in a new majority in the parliament and a center-right coalition government, including the Moderates and three parties that had approved of the 2005 document. In 2007 a "new public health policy" was introduced. Its priority lists stressed individual behavior and the new policy should be incentives to work instead of "allowances". The Public Health Institute got instructions in accordance with the new policy. The ten years following this policy change has seen public health policies and attitudes to research shifting almost year by year. The new policy met a counter-stream from the very beginning. Influenced by Michael Marmot's WHO Commission on health inequalities, regional commissions started in Sweden, Recommendations how to decrease social health gaps was adopted with almost no opposition by regional health boards in 2012–2013. But new problems were now occupying politicians and media—how to finance the growth of the old, multi-sick part of the population and increasing costs for new medical technologies and drugs. Public health as an academic discipline was in the middle of this fluctuating political landscape with direct effects on what has been considered worth listening to or support by public money.

"Entrepreneurship " has a positive connotation. The concept of "entrepreneurship" is, however, hard to define, and consequently the " hunt for Entrepreneurs" takes place in a haze (Berglund, 2007). There is no consensus in research on what constitutes entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship. Examples of different points of view, include whether or not entrepreneurship is a process or if it is connected to an individual or maybe a collective rather than to one person (Steyart & Landström, 2011). Often, in practice as well as in research, small firm owners and the self-employed are equated with entrepreneurship and consequently, small, new firms are supposed to be more innovative than big, old ones (Blackburn & Kovalainen, 2008). In practice, we know that far from all small firms and small firm owners are entrepreneurial in the established research-definitions of the concept, and that on the other hand, entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship can be found in all kinds of organizations (Hjorth, 2012; Kovalainen & Sundin, 2012). In this article the terms entrepreneurs and small-firm-owners/self-employed/owner-managers will be used as synonyms, as that is how they are used in the empirical material.

This article is about how the international New Public Management (NPM) trend is influencing the cleaning unit and cleaners employed in a Swedish municipality. Before the change, more than 500 cleaners were employed. The municipality wanted former employees to become the providers of the cleaning services. One male manager did so and was welcomed by the leading actors of the municipality. Although the law obliged employees to be transferred to the new provider, they were not. Instead, more than 140 employees, a great majority of them women, established a joint stock company together with the municipality as a temporary co-owner. This company had problems from the very beginning. Both new companies were sold after some years – the man's at a profit and the women's at a loss. This article analyses their story drawing on theories on incentives for entrepreneurship, networks, social capital and gender. The study was conducted for more than 10 years using multiple methods.

This article is based on the studies stemming from the Swedish White paper "Men are always in business !" which deals with the gendered division of power and economic resources. It concerns the retail trade sector and highlights the way in which the enterprise culture influences the relations between women and men in this sector, whether this through strategies for change or in the implementation of equal opportunities measures. We see in particular that while management policy always plays a key role in the process of segregation and hierarchization, decision-making power is relatively spread out among the different levels of the enterprise, and that more or less space is left to individual initiative.

Until recently material factors had usually been regarded as the most important forces behind the great mortality decline in Western Europe during the last two centuries. Today, the discussion among historical demographers is much more diversified. Greater consideration is given to other factors than was previously. Predominant in several recent summaries is the argument that there was not one single cause of the mortality decline everywhere and in every age group (Brändstrom 1993; Health Transition Review 1991: 1-2; Mercer 1990; Schofield, et al., 1991; Sundin 1992a). One factor which has gained recognition especially in urban areas is the efforts by local and national agencies to improve hygienic conditions (Riley 1987). Cultural determinants of health have also received increased attention both in articles and monographs, especially in relation to mortality among infants and children (Johansson 1991; Preston and Haines 1991).