Vårt paper syftar till att identifiera de kunskaper som behövs för att kunna arbeta och bo på landsbygden, både på individuell, personlig nivå och på samhällelig, strukturell nivå. Naturbruksprogrammet har sex olika inriktningar som kvalificerar eleverna att arbeta inom naturbrukssektorn med djurvård, hästhållning, lantbruk, naturturism, skogsbruk eller trädgård.

I detta paper undersöker vi hur naturbruksprogrammet marknadsförs till prospektiva studenter och i vilken utsträckning arbetsmarknad och anställningsbarhet relaterar till andra värden såsom både intresse och rural idyll på de olika programinriktningarna. Vi undersöker även arbetsmarknadsutsikter för studenter på naturbruksprogrammet genom en analys av registerdata från Gothenburg Longitudinal Database (GOLD) där vi ser hur tidigare studentgrupper tagit sig in på arbetsmarknaden och om de bosatt sig i rurala områden.

The Swedish welfare state builds on a dual-earner/dual carer model (Gornick & Meyers 2003) where women and men are able to combine work and family life. Recent research studies show that women even in a Nordic context are choosing to “opt-out” of the labour market. In this paper we consider media narratives regarding young women’s views on work and family life. The paper is a pilot study in preparation for a wider project where we aim to analyse whether normative changes in relation to the dual-earner/dual carer model explain young women’s hesitations in regard to combining work and family life. There seems to be a paradoxical development among young women towards an increased hesitance towards work, romanticization of family and traditional femininity and contradictory reproductive choices. These changes challenge the ideal of a dual-earner/dual carer model, and consequently the welfare and social security system built on dual incomes.  We research media coverage and social media accounts related to young women’s narratives about “opting-out” and analyse these accounts in relation to norms of  economic security, work and family life. We also consider these narratives in relation to normative changes of labour market participation and family life.

Balancing between the needs of individual interests and skills with labour market needs can be seen as one of the foundational skills of the career guidance profession (Parsons,1909). In previous decades, individualization of life biographies and more complex routes to the labour market can be seen as having led to a prioritization of individual needs over labour shortages (Lovén, 2015). Moreover, career guidance students about to enter the profession highlight the importance of providing individual support that is primarily motivational and confirming individual preferences (Rehn, 2024). In Sweden, the growth of marketization of upper secondary education has further enhanced the trend towards providing youth with attractive and interesting educational choice (Dovermark, et al 2018). Meanwhile, Nordic welfare states are facing significant labour shortages in areas such as health care, IT and manufacturing (OECD, 2023).  As a response to this dilemma, new regulations have recently been adopted in the Swedish Education Act, stipulating that labour market needs must be considered in the planning and structuring of upper secondary education (SFS 2010:800). The legislative proposal came into effect on January 1, 2025, requiring municipalities and regions to take greater account of regional labour needs when planning the offerings of various upper secondary education programs. Consequently, some upper secondary programs will have fewer available places, while programs targeting shortage occupations are expected to expand (Skolverket, 2025). In this study, I will explore the potential impact of this new legislation of career guidance counsellors’ work with clients. By using “vignettes”, i.e. case study descriptions, interviews with career guidance counsellors working in secondary schools are conducted (Sampson & Johanesson, 2019). Through the vignettes the study explores questions regarding professional dilemmas that encompass the balance between societal and regional labour market needs with individuals’ hopes and aspirations. By using a theoretical framework of professional identity (Bimrose & Brown, 2019), different potential ethical dilemmas involved in these career guidance counsellors’ potential shift towards being assumed to take on a stronger labour market focus will be analysed. 

This article connects rural sociology and personal life theory by considering how conceptions of love, childhood and family life are understood in Swedish rural contexts. Complex personal rural life narratives are presented from the perspective of the ‘ordinary’. Our result accounts for how imagined families and rural life arrangements are negotiated and how families that are happy with their personal lives conceptualise their choices in relation to their rural homes. Finding a partner and establishing a happy family impacts the choice of where to live and how to work. We argue that the informants’ attempts to negotiate their imagined family ideals and rural lives involve attempting to counterbalance contemporary ideas of gender equality within their rural everyday life practices. When they are unable to fulfil their imagined families successfully, they experience a ‘debt of love’ within their family.

Genom reformeringen av arbetsrätten som trädde i kraft under 2022 har reglernavid uppsägning blivit mer flexibla. Samtidigt stärktes individers möjligheterför att få omställningsstöd och kompetensutveckling via parternas förnyadeomställningsavtal och omställningsorganisationer, samt genom det nya statligaomställningsstudiestödet. Omställningsorganisationerna har därmed fått ettutökat uppdrag inom arbetsmarknadspolitiken och deras roll har blivit synligareoch mer institutionaliserad. Trots det finns det knappa kunskaper om vilkaorganisatoriska förutsättningar och konkreta arbetssätt de utgår ifrån.Genom en dokumentanalys kartlägger vi hur omställningsorganisationernaär organiserade och vilka typer av privata aktörer som anlitas av dem.