Income Redistribution Effect of the Swedish Sickness Allowance Insurance in a Comparison of Two Concepts of Social Class

Abstract

Social insurances effect income distributions between social strata. Here, insurance returns in relation to income are studied on the Swedish sickness allowance insurance, which is intended to redistribute from higher to lower social strata. Two measures of social class are used, the socio-economic classification, the official index of Sweden, and a structural class concept, which in earlier results discriminates better for material factors such as income and work conditions. The material consists of all sickness cases of 1983 for 3161 persons, sampled from insurance registers and cross-classified with registers at taxation authorities. Data on insurance returns, incomes, and occupation are used. Results clearly confirm the intended redistribution effect, but considerably clearer with the structural class concept. The effect is even stronger than intended for some strata, where the system seems to lack in implementation. The consequences for choice of class measure are finally discussed.