The Nordic welfare states face several challenges in the years to come. In this report, we have brought out some of these challenges, and we try to develop comparable indicators which may contribute to illustrating them. The indicators cover the years 2006-2010.

In Chapter 1, we look at different welfare models and what challenges we can identify, as well as the expenditure of the welfare state. In Chapter 2, we look at challenges that come from demographic changes, while Chapter 3 shows indicators on income distribution and social exclusion. Different aspects of the labour market are described in Chapter 4. Here we look at different forms of weak connections with the labour market, such as part-time employment, as well as work activities among seniors. Chapter 5 deals with different challenges related to the health of the population.