Gruppe for trygdeøkonomi ved Universitetet i Bergen

The Social Insurance Research Group at the University of Bergen (UoB) has been financed by The Research Council of Norway (the VAM programme), previously from 2010-2015, thereafter from 2016-2018, which is the period that is referred to here. The Social Insurance Research Group is a fully integrated part of Dept of Economics at the UoB with an obligation to undertake (i) research and (ii) teaching and competence building within social insurance and related fields. Below we will present achievements according to both of these objectives. The three main research fields in the period of the project has been: HEALTH, SOCIAL INSURANCE AND THE LABOUR MARKET This field of research has increased in scale and scope during the project period. The group has published within the sub-projects Health effects of receiving social insurance, and Health as determinant for labour market participation, social insurance and retirement; in highly ranked international journals as well as Norwegian journals intended for a broader audience. Not the least, three PhD thesis have been produced within this field, by PhD students associated with the research group and with the group’s researchers as supervisors. FAMILY ECONOMICS In reacent years, family economics research within the research group has been focused on lone mothers and their offspring; a research that has resulted in some excellent international publications. However, the publications also include research on caregiving and the burden of which that hits middle aged women taking responsibility for their increasingly aging parents, as well as research on childlessness among Norwegian males. Once again, we put emphasis on publishing internationally as well as in domestic journals where focus has been on outreach to a broader audience. We have also managed to publish several papers within the field of intergenerational mobility, which maps and explains the degree to which resources (economic and other) are transferred through generations. One of the afore mentioned PhD dissertations is within the field of family economics. EVALUATING THE WELFARE STATE This is an important topic that spans a substantial part of the research in our group. It includes experimental, often inter-disciplinary effect evaluations of rehabilitation and employment events targeted towards certain groups of the population. Such evaluations provide us with important knowledge regarding the Effects of planned reforms that is very hard to obtain from other sources, and is highly demanded by public authorities in their effort to maintain high employment, also for the least productive workers. However, the majority of our research evaluates short and long term effects of welfare reforms based on extensive data sets from public registers containing longitudinal data for the entire population. During the project period we have produced microeconometric analysis of effect evaluations that has been, or is about to become, published on a high international level. We have analysed effect of disability benefits and early retirement reforms, but also CRTs based on local experiments and the municipality level. All six PhD dissertations that are produced in this period contain contributions (one or several) to the evaluation research. The tenured group members have participated in the Dept of Economics educational activities. (50% of total workload allocated to teaching and supervising, with an obligation to teach and supervise in themes relevant for social insurance.) This implies, according to our project application: - Teaching courses in social insurance economics at all levels of the economics education at UoB which, at the end of the project period include: - Bachelor level: Welfare and Economic policy; The Economics of the Welfare State; Applied Labour Economics. - Master level: Demographic Development, Economic Growth, and Social Insurance; Empirical Research Design; Econometrics 2 - PhD level: The research group contributes occasionally, in the form of PhD course offered by our Professor II associates. - Recruiting master students that are getting trained in empirical analysis on the extensive Norwegian register data bases. - During the period 2016-2020, 38 students have submitted master thesis with subjects within the fields of the research group and supervised by the tenured members of the group. - Applying for funding from UoB as well as external sources for PhD students, and produce at least three candidates in social insurance economics in the course of the project period. - During the project period six dissertations have been submitted by PhD students that, in various ways, have been associated with the Social Insurance Research Group and supervised by the tenured members of the group.

I NFR's storstilte evaluering av samfunnsvitenskapene i Norge (SAMEVAL) utgjorde Gruppe for trygdeøkonomi en betydelig del av aktivitetene til vårt "moderinstitutt" Institutt for økonomi ved UiB. Ikke minst stod vi for ett av de tre innrapporterte "impact cases", nemlig betydningen av forskning på effekter av foreldrepermisjon og fedrekvoter, se impact case FAMILY, s.191-193 i Evaluation of the Social Sciences in Norway: Impact cases. I evalueringsrapporten ble dette trukket fram som et eksempel på forskning som har hatt stor gjennomslagskraft for politiske beslutninger. Evalueringspanelet gav gruppen høyeste karakter: 5 - Excellent.

Vi vil bruke programmet til å tilby utdanning, kompetansebygging og forskning i trygdeøkonomi og tilgrensende disipliner gjennom prosjektsamarbeid. På utdanningssiden vil vi tilby emner i trygdeøkonomi på alle nivå i samfunnsøkonomiutdanningen ved universitetet i Bergen, med kursinnhold tilpasset kompetanseoppbygging for studier av trygdespørsmål. Kompetansebyggingen består i å rekruttere mastergradsstudenter som får opplæring i empirisk analyse, og nye forskere på dr.gradsnivå. Vi søker finansiering fra UiB for én stipendiatstilling og vil i løpet av perioden også søke eksterne kilder for stipendiater, og har målsetting om å produsere minst to dr.grader i trygdeøkonomi i løpet av prosjektperioden. Videre vil vi sette i gang nye empirisk forankrede forskningsprosjekter der trygdeproblemstillinger analyseres i lys av forhold i arbeidslivet, demografisk utvikling, familie, hushold og utdanningssystem og i et globalt perspektiv. Forskning for å avklare hvordan stønadsordninger, tiltak og regelverk påvirker deltakelse i arbeidslivet og overganger mellom arbeid og trygd vil bli høyt prioritert. Forskningen vil foregå på to nivå. På den ene siden gjennom spissede problemstillinger som tar sikte på å avdekke årsakssammenhenger i avgrensede deler av trygdesystemet. På den andre siden er det større og bredere problemstillinger som egner seg bedre for tverr- og flerfaglige tilnærminger mellom grupper av forskere. Gruppens langvarige tverrfaglige samarbeid vil bli videreført, i første rekke med trygdeforskere innen psykologi og medisin. En viktig del av prosjektet er å videreutvikle kontakten med brukere i departement, direktorat, NAV, kommuner og andre virksomheter som er sentrale for velferds- og trygdepolitikk. Vi vil også videreutvikle internasjonale kontakter for komparative analyser og stimulere forskere som ikke blir finansiert gjennom trygdeforskningsprogrammet til å delta i forskning som er relevant for programmets mål.