Citizenship, Co-ethnic Populations and Employment Probabilities of Immigrants in Sweden

Over the last decades, Sweden has liberalized its citizenship policy by reducing the required number of years of residency to five for foreign citizens and only two for Nordic citizens. Dual citizenship has been allowed since 2001. During the same period, immigration patterns by country of birth changed substantially, with an increasing number of immigrants arriving from non-western countries. Furthermore, immigrants were settling in larger cities as opposed to smaller towns as was the case before. Interestingly, the employment integration of immigrants has declined gradually, and in 2006 the employment rate for foreign-born individuals is substantially lower compared to the native-born. The aim of this paper is to explore the link between citizenship and employment probabilities for immigrants in Sweden, controlling for a range of demographic, human capital, and municipal characteristics such as city and co-ethnic population size. The information we employ for this analysis consists of register data on the whole population of Sweden held by Statistics Sweden for the year 2006. The basic register, STATIV, includes demographic, socio-economic and immigrant specific information. In this paper we used instrumental variable regression to examine the "clean" impact of citizenship acquisition and the size of the co-immigrant population on the probability of being employed. In contrast to Scott (2008), we find that citizenship acquisition has a positive impact for a number of immigrant groups. This is particularly the case for non- EU/non-North American immigrants. In terms of intake class, refugees appear to experience substantial gains from citizenship acquisition (this is not, however, the case for immigrants entering as family class). We find that the impact of the co-immigrant population is particularly important for immigrants from Asia and Africa. These are also the countries that have the lowest employment rate.citizenship, naturalization, immigration, ethnicity

Electoral Participation as a Measure of Social Inclusion for Natives, Immigrants and Descendants in Sweden

Three decades ago, Sweden extended municipal and county voting privileges to non-citizen residents arguing that it would increase political influence, interest and self-esteem among foreign citizens. Three decades later, electoral participation on the part of immigrants is perceived as being substantially lower than for native born citizens and questions have arisen regarding the degree to which this may be symptomatic of a larger integration issue. The aim of this paper is to explore the determinants of voting within the context of social inclusion by comparing immigrants, their descendants and native citizens in Sweden while controlling for a range of socio-economic, demographic characteristics and contextual factors. We use two unique sets of data to conduct our research. The 2006 Electoral Participation Survey contains information on individual electoral participation in national, county and municipal elections. We match this information to registry data from Statistics Sweden which contains socio-demographic information for every Swedish resident. From these two sources, we are able to create a database which matches voting behaviour to individual characteristics for more than 70,000 residents of whom almost 13,000 are not citizens. We find that after controlling for demographic, socio-economic and contextual characteristics, acquisition of citizenship makes a real difference to the odds of voting and is therefore, a likely and powerful indicator of social inclusion. Immigrants who obtain citizenship are far more likely to vote than those who do not. Arguably, some of this may be attributed to the number of years of residency in the country. However, even non-citizens born in Sweden have substantially lower odds of voting. Country of birth also makes a difference. Immigrants from the Americas and those born in Sweden with immigrant parents are more likely to vote than immigrants from other countries. Somewhat surprisingly, age at immigration does not make a substantial difference to the odds of voting.political participation, immigrants, descendants, electoral participation, human capital, citizenship, social inclusion

Citizenship and Employment - comparing two cool countries

Over the last decades, both Canada and Sweden have liberalized citizenship regulations for permanent residents. During the same period, immigration patterns by country of birth have changed substantially, with an increasing number of immigrants arriving from non-western countries. The aim of this paper is to explore the link between citizenship and employment probabilities for immigrants in both countries, controlling for a range of demographic, human capital, and municipal characteristics such as city and co-ethnic population size. We use data from the 2006 Canadian census and Swedish register data (STATIV) for the year 2006. Both STATIV and the Census, include similar sets of demographic, socio-economic and immigrant specific. We use instrumental variable regression to examine the "clean" impact of citizenship acquisition and the size of the co-immigrant population on the probability of being employed in both countries. We find that citizenship acquisition has a positive influence on employment probabilities in both Canada and Sweden. The size of the co-ethnic population has a positive impact for many immigrant groups - as the co-ethnic population increases, the probability of being employed also increases.

The Self-Employment of Immigrants and Natives in Sweden

Earlier studies on entrepreneurship and self-employment among immigrants call attention to the fact that also the "market" for self-employment or entrepreneurs consists of a supply and demand side as well as the interaction between these two. More recent research suggests that a mix of personal resources, the surrounding structural context of markets, competition and the current political and economic environment, all acting together are seen as determining factors affecting self-employment by immigrants. However, few studies have been able to quantify the importance of these different aspects that determine ethnic self-employment. The central aim of this paper is therefore, by using multilevel regression, to quantify the role the country of birth respectively labour market area plays for understanding individual differences in self-employment. Using register data on individuals for the year of 2007 for the entire Swedish population we have in this study a unique opportunity to quantify the relative importance of the self-employers embeddedness in the social and ethnic networks (country of birth) and the regional business and public regulatory framework (labour market areas) measured. Our results suggest that of the total variation in individual differences in self-employment can 14 % (men) respectively 16 % (women) be attributed to the ethnic group and the labour market area. Furthermore, the ethnical groups accounted for 70 % (men) and 78 % (women) of this higher level variance. These results show that the social and ethnical context (measured by country of birth) and the economic environment (measured by local labour market areas) played a minor role for understanding individual differences in self-employment. These results can have important implications when planning interventions or other actions focusing on self-employment. Focusing only on ethnical groups/labour market areas might be inefficient as approximately 85 % of the variation is not explained by ethnical groups/labour market areas. Instead more general approaches or interventions focusing on other groups that capture a larger part of the variation might be more efficient.immigrants, self-employment, integration, entrepreneurship, multilevel logistic regression

Electoral participation as a measure of social inclusion for natives, immigrants and descendants in Sweden

Three decades ago, Sweden extended municipal and county voting privileges to non-citizen residents arguing that it would increase political influence, interest and self-esteem among foreign citizens. Three decades later, electoral participation on the part of immigrants is perceived as being substantially lower than for native born citizens and questions have arisen regarding the degree to which this may be symptomatic of a larger integration issue. The aim of this paper is to explore the determinants of voting within the context of social inclusion by comparing immigrants, their descendants and native citizens in Sweden while controlling for a range of socio-economic, demographic characteristics and contextual factors. We use two unique sets of data to conduct our research. The 2006 Electoral Participation Survey contains information on individual electoral participation in national, county and municipal elections. We match this information to registry data from Statistics Sweden which contains socio-demographic information for every Swedish resident. From these two sources, we are able to create a database which matches voting behaviour to individual characteristics for more than 70,000 residents of whom almost 13,000 are not citizens. We find that after controlling for demographic, socio-economic and contextual characteristics, acquisition of citizenship makes a real difference to the odds of voting and is therefore, a likely and powerful indicator of social inclusion. Immigrants who obtain citizenship are far more likely to vote than those who do not. Arguably, some of this may be attributed to the number of years of residency in the country. However, even non-citizens born in Sweden have substantially lower odds of voting. Country of birth also makes a difference. Immigrants from the Americas and those born in Sweden with immigrant parents are more likely to vote than immigrants from other countries. Somewhat surprisingly, age at immigration does not make a substantial difference to the odds of voting

Young people's attitudes towards Muslims in Sweden

Since the 1950's, the Muslim population in Sweden has grown from just a few individuals to approximately 350,000 of which one third is of school age or younger. With the use of multiple regression technique, the principal objective of this study has been to clarify and examine young people's attitudes towards Muslims, and the relationships between these attitudes and a large number of background factors. The material employed in the analysis comprises a representative sample of 9,498 non-Muslim youths (4,680 girls and 4,818 boys) between 1519 years of age. The main results of the study show that when controlling for several background variables simultaneously, many variables affect the attitude towards Muslims. The country of birth, socio-economic background and school/program factors are found to have an effect on the attitude towards Muslims. Moreover, especially socio-psychological factors, the relationship to friends and the perceptions of gender role patterns are found to be important. In addition, local/regional factors like high levels of unemployment, high shares of immigrants in a local environment also have an effect on the attitude towards Muslims. No differences in the attitude of boys and girls were measured. The article gives some support for the contact hypothesis and hypotheses on different kinds of social dominance. Finally, the influence of negative discourses on Islam and Muslims are discussed

The employment and income performance of immigrants in Sweden, 1970-1990

In recent decades, Sweden has suffered from a relatively low growth rate, while undergoing a transformation towards increased service sector employment and decreased industrial employment. Simultaneously with the economic changes, the constitution of immigration to Sweden has also changed significantly, shifting from European labor migrants to non-European refugees and tied movers. This Paper discusses the forces behind the decreasing labor market attachment among immigrants to Sweden in the period 1970-1990. Points of special interest here are employment rates and relative incomes of various immigrant nationalities. This is accomplished through the charting of labor force Participation rates and employment patterns of different immigrant groups over the period in question. The statistics in this paper are based on the five most recent Swedish censuses, from which we have data at the individual level regarding age, sex, country of origin, employment status, sector of employment, and immigration year

Economic Integration of Intermarried Labour Migrants, Refugees and Family Migrants to Sweden: Premium or Selection?

We use Swedish register data to compare the employment and income of immigrants who intermarry natives versus those of immigrants who intramarry other immigrants in Sweden. We conduct the same analyses on three subsamples: labour migrants, refugees and family migrants. We find that intermarried immigrants outperformed intramarried ones in employment rates and salaries before and after marriage, in 1997 and 2007 respectively, and the same in true for each of the three subsamples analyzed. There is a statistically significant difference in income growth between intermarried and intramarried immigrants within that time period, but this difference is only significant for the subsample of family migrants. Finally, the upward mobility in employment status between 1997 and 2007 is higher for intermarried immigrants than for intramarried ones, with this being also the case for each of the three groups of labour migrants, refugees and family migrants. Our findings provide evidence to support both the selection hypothesis and the intermarriage premium hypothesis for the whole group of immigrants to Sweden. They also fully support the selection hypothesis for labour and family migrants but only partially for refugees; whereas they fully confirm the intermarriage premium hypothesis for family migrants but only partially for refugees and labour migrants

Naturalisation and socioeconomic integration: the case of the Netherlands

This paper investigates Dutch immigrants' naturalisation decision and how naturalisation affects their employment chances and wages in the Netherlands. The population under consideration consists mainly of refugees from Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Somalia and former Yugoslavia, and a minority of immigrants from Turkey and Morocco. The data used come from the Dutch survey 'Social Position and Use of Public Utilities by Migrants' for the years 2002 and 2003. A multivariate analysis shows that higher educational levels and having obtained an education in the Netherlands positively affects naturalisation. In turn naturalisation is positively related to the job chances among immigrants and refugees. It is also positively related to wages among refugees, but not among Mediterranean immigrants who came to the Netherlands for various reasons

Minorities, social capital and voting

It is widely held that voter turnout among immigrants and ethnic minorities is lower than among the native born. The goal of our paper is to explore the determinants of voting, comparing immigrant, minority and majority citizens in Canada. We use the 2002 wave of the Equality Security Community Survey to explore the relationship between personal characteristics (age, sex, education, and household type) work characteristics, social capital attributes (trust in government, belonging, civic awareness and interaction with others) and ethnic characteristics (ethnic origin, place of birth and religion) and voting. We find that the combination of socio-demographic and social capital attributes largely overrides the impact of immigration and ethnicity. This suggests that it is not the minority attribute that impacts voting. Rather it is age, level of schooling and level of civic engagement which effects voting, both federal and provincial