[Sick women and men with disability pensions. Some reflections]

According to population studies, chronic disease leading to a disability pension is common in the Norwegian population, and has increased during the last 15 years. This trend is partly a consequence of the vast increase in the female work force during the last 20 years. Simultaneously, there has been a strong increase in health facilities and improvement in medical technology. Thus the increase in both morbidity and utilisation of the pension scheme seems paradoxical. Disability pensions function to secure people's purchasing power. The social benefit system in modern welfare states conforms with Keynesian economic principles, implying a redistribution of money from the well off on regular pay roll to members of the work force who are less adaptable due to disease and infirmity. However, there seems to be a substantial potential for further growth in the number of disabled persons receiving a pension, particularly among women. In many cases a pension serves as an alternative to unemployment benefit. From a welfare-state viewpoint such a development is politically and socially more acceptable.