For the majority of the population in Europe and North America, the past half-century has brought impressive improvements in standards of living, in economic security, and in material comforts. Unemployment is no longer regarded as an unavoidable evil; on the contrary, full employment has now been embraced as a central goal of economic policy-making in most of these countries, and unemployment has in most cases been reduced to very small proportions, thanks very largely to the development of active labor market policies in which Scandinavian countries have played a pioneering role. Social security and welfare programs, in which the Scandinavian countries have again given the world a lead, have been adopted to cover virtually the entire population; and numerous indices - such as the growing numbers of private cars, and the purchases of consumer goods such as television sets and washing machines - point to high incomes from work among large sectors of the population.