Sårbarhetskedjan : En feministisk studie av hur utförsäkring förkroppsligas när välfärden brister

The welfare state is ideally about guaranteeing citizens welfare and social security. This thesis describes how the embodied experience of austerity politics and reforms of national health insurance in Sweden is lived along the links of what I call “the chain of precarity”. In 2008 the duration of the entitlement to sickness benefit was limited to 2.5 years. The majority of people on sick leave and passing the benefit limit were women. Using qualitative in-depth interviews and drawing on feminist phenomenology, theories of recognition and crip perspectives, the analysis shows that the chain of precarity orients women with long-term illness towards increased vulnerability and risk. This (dis)orientation is the result of a lack of recognition and respect within the fields of social insurance, health care, work life, discourse and politics as well as close relations