The ongoing demographic change taking place in most developed countries leads to societies with a disproportionally share of older individuals contributing to both challenges and opportunities at the individual, firm, and societal level. The demographic change and its associated outcomes have received considerable attention from both the academic sphere as well as from policy makers. If the change in the overall society is mirrored at the firm level, one would observe a large share of older individuals within firms and an overall changed age structure. In this chapter, we assess if the age diversity and age structure at the firm level is associated with a change in the wage of individual employees, controlling for individual, firm, and regional specific factors. We further differentiate across occupations to observe how the effect differ across the hierarchal levels within firms. We emphasize the role of managers as they have a unique role in the firm. We use administrative data from Germany covering 10% of all fulltime employees from 2012 to 2018. 

This study evaluates career trajectories in the retail and wholesale sectors, focusing on individual attributes and the underlying factors influencing diverse career outcomes. Employing quantitative (sequence analysis and logit estimations) and qualitative (interview study) methodologies, we examine the pre-pandemic era to systematically map prevalent career trajectories in retail and wholesale. We identify personal traits associated with each career outcome, examine the reasons behind these trajectories, and explore strategies businesses can implement to retain their workforce. Our findings indicate that retail and wholesale sector employees typically experience either a prolonged career or a transient one, where initial jobs serve as a springboard to other industries or higher education. In retail, the likelihood of industry switching is lower among males, older individuals, those without children, and individuals with less education. In wholesale, a similar trend is observed, albeit without notable gender disparities. A key factor for employee turnover is the absence of skills development opportunities.

This paper assesses the role of human capital in labor turnover and turnover destinations of full-time retail employees. We use register data that encompasses the full population of Swedes above the age of 16 and follow the career paths of those that have, at one point in time between 2002 and 2018, worked full-time in retail. We use logit- and multinomial logit-estimations to assess the role of firm-specific (proxied by establishment tenure) and worker-specific human capital (proxied by industry tenure, formal education, retail education, and occupational complexity) in the propensity to quit a retail establishment and the retail sector. Results indicate that establishment tenure, industry tenure, retail education, and occupational complexity decrease the probability of quitting, while formal education has the opposite effect. Moreover, we find that industry tenure, retail education, and occupational complexity increase the probability of staying in the retail sector. 

We provide new evidence on sexual orientation, entrepreneurship, and firm survival using Swedish population register data linked to business registry data from 1995 to 2020. Over this period, we study over 19,000 individuals who ever entered a legal same-sex union and compare their entrepreneurship and firm level outcomes with individuals exclusively in different-sex unions. We find that sexual minority men are 7.8% less likely than comparable heterosexual men to be entrepreneurs, while sexual minority women are 4.8% more likely than comparable heterosexual women to be entrepreneurs. Both differences are statistically significant. We also provide the first evidence regarding the survival of sexual minority founded firms compared to firms founded by heterosexual individuals. Our results show that firms founded by sexual minority women fail more quickly than observably similar firms founded by heterosexual women, with no significant survival difference observed for sexual minority men. We explore the role of several external and internal factors that may explain these underlying patterns and find that lack of a 'trapped market' may contribute to the higher failure rate of firms founded by sexual minority women. We also find suggestive support for a role of romantic partners in explaining differences in firm survival experienced by sexual minority women compared to heterosexual women. We find that sexual minority men are less likely than heterosexual men to be entrepreneurs. Sexual minority women are more likely to be entrepreneurs than heterosexual women, but their ventures fail more quickly. Customer discrimination against sexual minorities may play a role, suggesting the potential for an expanded scope of intervention to reduce such discrimination. Heterosexual women's access to a male partner's resources may also contribute to the differential firm survival gap.

Using data for over four decades, we examine the ageing of Swedish municipalities and if there has been convergence or divergence across time and space, where we differentiate across the urban–rural hierarchy. As migration is claimed to be a moderating factor in the ageing of places, we assess how the share of immigrants relates to ageing patterns. Our findings show that the share of older individuals increases in more peripheral localities and that there has been convergence across municipalities. However, the share of foreign population is negatively related to the ageing profile of a place.

There is evidence that individuals engage in herding behavior in diverse settings, ranging from fashion choices to financial markets. By examining the exogenous shock caused by the outbreak of COVID-19 and unique data measuring the footfalls in downtown Jonkoping, Sweden, we empirically assess how individuals respond to the restrictions imposed by the government and to the behavior of others, that is, herding. To this end, a regression discontinuity analysis with time as the running variable is applied. We find a negative effect of the restriction on footfalls, indicating that individuals follow the imposed governmental restrictions. However, we also find indications that individuals imitate the actions of others and engage in herd behavior even when the cost of doing so is very high; that is, it could result in severe illness or even death. With the use the unique setting of Sweden, where there have been no enforced lockdowns, we contribute with knowledge related to how effective voluntary restrictions are and the influence of others on one's decision making. Although the nature of the studied sample limits the external generalizability of the results, it may offer guidance for future interventions in clearly delineated settings.

In this paper, we examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the well-being of entrepreneurs. We surveyed a representative sample of Swedish entrepreneurs and wage employees at different stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. The survey data, combined with register data, show that the COVID-19 outbreak has a negative effect on the well-being of entrepreneurs in terms of increased perceived stress. However, this negative effect is weaker for entrepreneurs who feel younger than their chronological age and entrepreneurs who are geographically distant from the epicenter of the crisis. 

Many countries have experienced increases in the diversity of their labor forces. Our paper examines one such country—Sweden—and relates the diversity of the local labor force, in terms of demography, culture, education, occupation and industry, to new firm formation. We measure diversity using entropy measures that account for a wider range of differences than is typically used. Our empirical analysis finds a positive relationship between diversity of the labor force, in terms of demography, culture and education, and the rate of new firm formation. Our results add to the literature on the workings of agglomeration economies in urban growth through variations in human capital, information spillovers and innovation.

Most rural areas face a range of challenges stemming from the loss of their traditional comparative advantages due to mechanisation, automation, and structural change. In comparison to urban regions, these areas face systemic structural problems, such as lower levels of formal education, ageing populations, and a low and shrinking market potential. Rural areas therefore tend to offer a less fertile environment for entrepreneurship than urban areas provide. In this chapter, we will explore various aspects of rural entrepreneurship by analysing how the volume of entrepreneurship varies in rural areas in Sweden depending upon the size of the local market potential and the development level of the local economic milieu. We will further share insights into rural entrepreneurship by analysing the relative shares of distinct types of entrepreneurship by separating unincorporated and incorporated firms and distinguishing new firms with multiple employees from one-employee firms.

Family firms are a keystone in many countries as they provide employment opportunities and help the economy grow and prosper. As a result, family firms have been extensively studied; however, there are important aspects that still need to be better understood. One of these is the relationship between family firms and the socio-spatial context in which they act, that is, their local embeddedness. This study adds to existing research by placing family firms in their regional context and assessing whether and to what extent they are more locally embedded than their non-family counterparts. We measure local embeddedness through place tenure and distance to the local firm for key firm stakeholders. Our findings show that family firms rely greatly on more enduring and spatially proximate stakeholders and therefore show a stronger link with the socio-economic milieu in which they dwell. Relevant contributions to family business and regional studies, together with public policy implications, are discussed.