The Danish Welfare State is a comprehensive new examination of how risk is transforming a modern European welfare state. The book argues that life in a modern welfare state is changing rapidly, and that different forms of risks and the management of risks play an important role in these changes. Through different sociological methods a broad range of welfare areas are analyzed in the book: globalization, social investment, labor marked, inequality, values, family life, education, health, aging, crime, alcohol use, refugees and cash benefit recipients. These analyses at macro, meso, and micro levels reveal how the different ways that risks are perceived and handled, both collectively and individually, is influencing and changing the design of the Danish welfare state and also our understanding of it.

Tea Torbenfeldt Bengtsson is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

Morten Frederiksen is Assistant Professor at the Centre for Comparative Welfare Studies, Aalborg University, Denmark.

Jørgen Elm Larsen is Professor of Sociology at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

1. Is Risk Transforming the Danish Welfare State?; Tea Torbenfeldt Bengtsson, Morten Frederiksen and Jørgen Elm Larsen
PART I
2. Denmark in an International Perspective; Peter Abrahamson
3. Social Investments as Risk Management; Jon Kvist
4. Employment Relations, Flexicurity and Risk: Explaining the Risk Profile of the Danish Flexicurity Model; Carsten Strøby Jensen
5. Precarity and Public Risk Management: Trends in Denmark Across Four Decades; Stefan B. Andrade
6. Towards a New Culture of Blame?; Morten Frederiksen
PART II
7. When Family Life is Risky Business— Immigrant Divorce in the Women-Friendly Welfare State; Mai Heide Ottosen and Anika Liversage
8. The Risky Business of Educational Choice of Meritocratic Society; Kristian Karlson and Anders Holm
9. Health in a Risk Perspective: The Case of Overweight; Nanna Mik-Meyer
10. Failing Ageing? Risk Management in the Active Ageing Society; Tine Rostgaard
PART III
11. Controlling Young People through Treatment and Punishment; Tea Torbenfeldt Bengtsson
12. Alcohol and Risk Management in a Welfare State; Margaretha Järvinen
13. The Tough and the Brittle: Calculating and Managing the Risk of Refugees; Katrine Syppli Kohl
14. Cash Benefit Recipients – Vulnerable or villains?; Dorte Caswell, Jørgen Elm Larsen and Stella Mia Sieling-Monas
15. Risk Dynamics and Risk Management in the Danish Welfare State; Tea Torbenfeldt Bengtsson, Morten Frederiksen and Jørgen Elm Larsen