We spent the whole day in the city and it was great. In the morning, we went to Gothenburg University and heard three informational presentations from several faculty there. Dr. Holm introduced her research about aging and health. It’s a very realistic situation that all countries are facing today that when people are living longer, it’s not only important to think about their physical health but also their mental health. She mentioned about Swedish blogger Dagny Carlsson who’s 105 years old but still lives like a young girl. She’s physically healthy and stays curious about news things. It’s a big problem and will be even more serious in the future because people live longer due to the development of medical and improvement of living standard. How to make elder people be healthy and can control their own lives is one of the biggest challenges today.
The second and the third presentations we heard were both related to economics and management under the Swedish situation. Dr. Bergstrom talked about the Swedish economy and the Swedish Model. Swedish economy depends on its open economy trade all over the world and it’s crucial for them to learn to adjust its labor force when condition changes after recession in 2008. Sweden had been through a hard time and overcame it. Swedish economy had some culture shock from European Union rules about minimum wages and found it more unfriendly to smaller, less productive business to develop. Dr. Hallsten discussed more about HR in Sweden. The trade unions play a key role in Sweden and they are not about organizing strikes, like we heard about American unions. Many foreign countries were reluctant about working with Swedish unions at first but, eventually, found it necessary because all the negotiation is done through unions and unions actually ensure the stable employment relations.
We also had a great conversation with students from Gothenburg University and discussed the differences of universities in US and in Sweden. We heard that Swedish universities are free to all the EU people, how cool is that? We walked around the city the whole afternoon and had great food. We even visited a zoo (it’s also free!). Gothenburg is a great city and I’m excited to stay here for two more days! I’m crossing my fingers for the warm weather too!
