Immigration and Integration in Sweden

Immigration has been one the hottest topics in Swedish social media and news recently. Because Sweden has been taking the most refugees in Europe after Germany and more than 15% of Swedish population have foreign background, it is the highest after Switzerland. So every now and then people talk about it. A friend of mine has sent me some questions for his research work, therefore I have decided to write this blog post and send this to him as well. It is based on my own observations and discussions I have been doing with the people.

There have been different kind of immigrants coming to Sweden over the years

1-      Labor force from Europe

2-      Foreign life partners of Swedish people

3-      Refugees

4-      Students and skilled workers

Sweden is an industrialized country for over 140 years now. In past there has been periods with huge economic developments when the local labor force was not enough. A lot of people from other parts of Europe came to Sweden to work here. These people got integrated because

1-      They had jobs when they moved here

2-      They could build network and socialize with their colleagues

3-      They shared kind of similar values as the locals did

Now Sweden have 2-3 generations of these migrants and if you do not ask your Swedish friends if they have foreign roots, it is hard to judge.

Sweden have a high number of people moving here because of their relations to Swedish people. Ever year over 40,000 people move to Sweden for this reason. The major reason is its generous social system and good social security. These migrants integrate faster because they already have family here. They hardly face issues related to permanent residence permit or Swedish citizenship. Normally they become a Swedish citizen in 3 years. The employment agency have good programs of integration for this group of people that make it easier for them to get employment.  

The third group is refugees. Over the years they have been coming from different parts of the world. Majority came from Former Yugoslavian region and Middle East. It has been hard for this group to integrate and that has created a distance between the former population of Sweden and new incomers. The reasons are

1-      They have different values than the local people, and that is a major hurdle in the integration process

2-      Most of them are unemployed

3-      Swedes spend most of their time in smaller social circles, that are not open to outsiders

4-      The integration process is slower for many people due to lower level of education and language skills

5-      It is easier for them to spend most of their time with the people from similar background. Therefore they end up in the societies where only foreigners live

6-      Due to high influx of refugees, the government could not facilitate a good integration process due to the lack of resources

Another group that rather very small are the students and skilled immigrants. They are in minority. Most of the foreign students in Sweden are now from Germany and other European countries. A few of them stay here after their studies, majority of them move back after completion of their studies. In past a lot of Non-European students moved to Sweden due to the free education. When Sweden started charging tuition fees in 2011, this flow of students stopped. There were no job opportunities for these graduates either. The students that got the job after studies stayed. Some did odd jobs, that were not relevant to their professional education and some did jobs relevant to their professional education. In both cases they got integrated in the society. These were the people who chose to live in Sweden that made it easier for them.