This study has centered on the proposal for decreasing the entrance rate in order to create more jobs and integrate the increasing asylum seekers in the Swedish society. Based on a discourse analysis on the parliamentary debates “The road to the labor market” and “Integration”, this thesis examines the discourses around ‘justice’. By applying Nancy Frasers theoretical framework of justice, the arguments were analyzed in order to understand if the constructed problems were built on the dimension of recognition or redistribution and to investigate if the solutions were based on an affirmative or transformative strategy. The analysis shows that the primary justice discourse in the debate of labor and integration is the distribution dimension. The injustices that are presented in these debates are concerned with maldistribution. Affirmative strategies are mostly suggested for solutions which indicates that the politicians in the Swedish parliament have an urge to solve problems in the present instead of focusing on the future and solving the underlying structure.

This dissertation is about the experiences of low-paid single mothers in sustaining their families in Sweden in the early 2000. The investigation builds upon interviews with twenty low-paid single mothers living and working in Stockholm. Ten of the women are Swedish-born and the other ten are Iranian-born but have been residing in Sweden for several years. A majority of the Swedish-born women belong to the working class, while most of the Iranian-born mothers are from a middle class background. This study is based on an extended definition of sustenance that encompasses support for livelihood and meeting the family needs that conform to socially accepted norms. Sustenance requires incomes to cover expenses and care work. The informants sustain their families mostly from wage work. However, they also seek allowances from the social security system to buy goods and services that they combine with care work to sustain the family. The care work for younger children demands much time and physical work, while caring for older children requires more mental and emotional work. Sustenance for these mothers implies fulfilling all these demands and also to ensure that the children’s’ needs are met. Several factors influence the mothers’ sustenance. Low wages and the single responsibility for children means less money and more time devoted to care work. Few fathers take significant responsibility for their children’s sustenance. The mothers get support from their social networks, often from other women and from the welfare system. Ethnic background negatively affects sustenance for the Iranian-born mothers mostly in the form of reduced cultural and social capital. Children are the highest priority among all the families. However, the priorities may differ among the families and are connected to the mothers’ class, ethnic background and their access to cultural capital.