ABSTRACT Debates about spatial inequality and rural discontent often invoke cutbacks of the public sector as a key factor in explaining political and social divides. Covering the period from 1993 to 2023, we use register‐based employment data and citizen surveys to study public employment, as well as trust in and satisfaction with public services across five types of municipalities, ranging from metropolitan to very sparse rural areas. By combining data on education and employer, we maximize comparability over time despite changing classification and the growth of private, publicly funded providers of welfare services. While total public employment has declined, the decline is not greater in rural municipalities. Employment per capita in healthcare and education has grown, more so in rural municipalities. The latter trend is partly but not entirely explained by population decline. On the other hand, functions of the night‐watchman state have contracted, disproportionately affecting sparsely populated regions. Survey evidence indicates that trust and satisfaction with public services have held steady or improved in rural municipalities, diverging from downward trends in metropolitan areas. These results complicate dominant narratives of rural marginalization and retrenchment.
Bergh et al. (Wed,) studied this question.