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Compensation for injuries from work
The rules concerning eligibility for benefits from the insurance for injuries from work
scheme are comprehensive and complicated as in most other countries. Compensation can
be obtained during illness, permanent loss of working capability and in case of death. For
illness a special ’coordination period’ existed until July 1993 according to which sickness
benefits under the insurance for injuries from work scheme were paid after special rules.
From July 1993 these special rules were abolished and replaced with the ordinary rules for
sickness benefits, cf. the section on sickness benefits.
If the loss of working capability is permanent the lost income is replaced completely (up
to the usual ceiling in the Swedish system). There is consequently no reason to calculate
the impact on disposable income from compensation for permanent loss of working
capability, there is none.
Old age pensions
The Swedish public pension system consists of disability pension, partial pension and old
age pension. The old age pension scheme, the only one considered here, is very flexible.

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It is possible to receive this pension, also on a partial basis, from the age of 60 years (61
years from 1998). If the pension is received before the age of 65 years there will be a
permanent reduction, if it is received (for the first time) after the age of 65 there will be a
permanent bonus. The bonus increases by waiting to ’take up’ the pension until the age of
70 years.
There have been relatively few changes in the rules for old age pension. From 1993 the
pensions have been based upon 98 per cent of the ’basic rate’ down from 100 per cent. The
components of the public pensions are defined as shares of the ’basic rate’. As a partial
compensation for the reduced base, one of the components, ’pensionstilskuddet’, which is
means tested against other pension income, was increased (its ’share’ of the basic rate was
increased).
The old age pension scheme will be reformed, and a new system will be gradually intro-
duced from 2001. The contributions to the new scheme have already started, cf. the sec-
tions on personal taxation and unemployment benefits, when an employee paid social
contribution of 1 per cent of the income (up to the usual ceiling) was introduced in January
1995. This social contribution will be augmented in coming years (and the employer paid
contributions will be decreased).
In 1995, 1996 and 1997 the ’basic rate’ was only increased by 60 per cent of the relative
price increase, the ’usual’ is 100 per cent. The degree of price regulation depends on the
public budget deficit, the smaller this is, the closer to 100 per cent the price regulation of
the ’basic rate’ will be. The 98 per cent of the ’basic rate’ as basis for public pensions was
continued. This ’basic rate’ is also applied in the calculation of the personal allowance for
pensioners in the taxation scheme.
Table 3.7 contains the net replacement rates (based upon disposable income) for a single
pensioner and a pensioner couple in different situations. Only old age pension is consid-
ered.
Table 3.7.
Net replacement rates (%) for pensioners (starting at 65 years). The reference for singles is the
APW income level, for the couple it is 1.5 times that level.
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1)
Single, 
full working record
68.7
68.3
68.7
67.4
67.4
64.3
63.7
Single, 
no working record
41.3
41.1
41.6
41.2
41.3
39.6
39.3
Couple, 
full working record
70.0
69.6
70.2
69.1
69.0
65.8
65.2
(1.5 APW income)
1)
Preliminary calculation (’Elements’).

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The reduction of the base from 1992 to 1993 is not evident in the net replacement rates, on
the contrary these are increasing from 1992 to 1993. This is caused by a nominal decrease
in the disposable income for the ’Production Worker’ from 1992 to 1993, cf. section 3.1
table 3.1, the denominator in the calculation of the net replacement rate decreases and the
nominator increases, but not as fast as it would have done without the reduction from 100
to 98 per cent of the base. In 1994 and 1995 the changes make their impact, the net
replacement rates are decreasing, especially from 1993 to 1994 where disposable income
from work increased much more than the base for pensions. This was again, and even
stronger, the case from 1995 to 1996 and again, but this time more moderately, from 1996
to 1997, implying further quite significant decreases in the net replacement rates for
pensioners. In the calculations presented, the number of ’pension points’ in the supplemen-
tary pension scheme have been held constant. In the real world these will increase slightly.
The implication here is a slight overestimation of the decrease in the net replacement rates.