Mattias Bengtsson

My research has mainly focused on the welfare state, labour markets, industrial relations, retirement and the meaning of work, and sociological theory development. My research has often been based on issues of social inequality, especially from a class perspective. I have studied social class in relation to issues such as the individualisation of working life, social comparisons, social mobility, class identification, attitudes to trade unions and political attitudes. Over the last decade, I have, together with Marita Flisbäck, professor of sociology, developed a sociological perspective on existence. We have done this in relation to studies of individuals’ meaning making in connection with retirement, attitudes to work as a calling, as well as older workers’ competences and existential driving forces for an extended occupational life.

Until 2026, I am participating in a Nordic research project comparing policy changes, actors' strategies and labour market and welfare-related effects of the pandemic in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. In addition, within the framework of a FORTE programme (2023-2029), I am studying issues of social sustainability and just transition in connection with the green transition of the automotive industry in western Sweden. Another area of research is studies of the ‘work line’ and austerity policies, and how this is expressed in changes in active labour market policies and in unemployment and sickness insurance systems. I have previously studied issues concerning opportunities and obstacles for transnational trade union co-operation within the EU, the working poor in a European perspective, and reforms within the Swedish Public Employment Service and their consequences for caseworkers and clients. I also have a strong commitment to leading, developing, and reviewing new research – I am regularly engaged as a reviewer of thesis texts and am the main supervisor for two PhD students in work science at the University of Gothenburg.

My page at ResearchGate

Assignments

• Board member of the Nordic Journal of Working Life Studies
• Board member of the Work and Employment Research Centre at the University of Gothenburg
• Member of the editorial board of Arbetsmarknad & Arbetsliv
• Research group leader for the research group “Working Life and Welfare in Transition”, University of Borås

Doctoral thesis title

The individual is clocking in. Work, union and pay in sociological illumination [Individen stämplar in. Arbetet, facket och lönen i sociologisk belysning] (2008)

External Publications

List of publications (University of Gothenburg)