This article seeks to fill a research gap by analysing refugees’ voting behavior, using Sweden (known for high refugee immigration, relatively liberal enfranchisement rules, and comprehensive electoral data) as a case study. Relying on register data on turnout from Swedish municipal elections, the article sheds new light on how the political integration of refugees varies. We test theories of resocialization and examine the extent to which a refugee’s political integration is affected by the surrounding environment, focusing on the political culture of the areas surrounding their neighborhoods. The results show that two major factors strongly affect refugee turnout rates: the acquisition of citizenship, and the degree of diversity of nationality in the districts in which refugees live, based on different experiences of “bonding” and “bridging” with the surrounding environment.

This study examined the impact of native youth's subjective well-being on exclusionary attitudes toward immigrants, seeking to understand the relationship between subjective well-being, political distrust, and anti-immigrant attitudes over time. Using longitudinal data, we followed three cohorts of native young adults (N = 1352; Mage = 22.72, SD = 3.1) in Sweden over a period of 2 years. The results showed that subjective well-being did not predict an increase in anti-immigrant attitudes among native youth, but anti-immigrant attitudes had a significant impact on subjective well-being. The data also found bidirectional and mutually reinforcing relationships between subjective well-being and political distrust, and between political distrust and anti-immigrant attitudes. These results highlight that improving young adults' subjective well-being represents an important basis for preventing the development of political distrust, which in turn could reduce native youth's susceptibility to adopt hostile attitudes toward immigrants.

Much prior research relies on the idea that antipathy towards immigrants is primarily driven by natives' perceptions of the threat that immigrants represent to their economic, cultural or national well-being. Yet little is known about whether subjective well-being affects attitudes toward immigrants. This study aimed to examine whether life satisfaction would foster tolerance towards immigrants over time via the indirect influence of political satisfaction and social trust. The sample comprised young native adults (N = 1352; M age = 22.72; SD = 3.1) in Sweden. The results revealed that young adults who were satisfied with important life domains were more likely to extend their satisfaction towards the political system, which consequently resulted in a generalised expectation of trustworthiness and a widening of their circles of trusted others. This then translates into more positive attitudes toward immigrants. The findings provide evidence that it is the causal relationship between political satisfaction and social trust (rather than social trust in itself) which promotes the positive impact of life satisfaction on tolerance towards immigrants. The study highlights that fostering political satisfaction and social trust may play an important role in shaping young people's positive attitudes towards immigrants.

This paper examines the causal effect of the possibility to vote on foreigners' propensity to naturalise - a key indicator of successful integration. Based on Swedish administrative data and an institutional setting producing a quasi-random assignment of the eligibility to vote, we find that the overall effect depends on the composition of the migrant population. For immigrants from places with poor living conditions, we observe that the experience of non-citizen voting rights substantially increases their propensity to naturalise. However, for those coming from places with a high standard of living, the same experience reduces it. Both reactions clearly reveal that individuals assign a positive value to formal democratic participation rights. While the behaviour of the former group is likely dominated by the motivational force inherent in the possibility to participate, the behaviour of the latter group reflects the devaluation of formal citizenship if it is decoupled from democratic rights.

Labour market integration of immigrants, the extent to which and the pace with which immigrants reach (close) parity with natives regarding labour force participation, employment and earnings is a major public concern. Human capital theory suggest labour immigrants are positively selected and that the disadvantage at arrival are expected to diminish as they learn new valuable skills. However, a growing diaspora at destination and migration for non-economic reasons reduces the selection.

Empirical studies show the importance of accounting for differences between cohorts of migrants; early cohorts typically perform better than later ones. Another important thing to note is the large and highly persistent differences in integration between labour migrants, family re-union migrants and refugees. The two latter categories, which never catch up with the labour migrants have been increasing over time. Their difficulties to reach same levels are not well understood, however.

Much prior research has focused on understanding how host nationals’ negative opinions of the impact of migration and arriving communities affect their attitudes towards newcomers. Yet, the role of host nationals’ positive opinions has remained largely underinvestigated. The present study aims to move beyond the negative intergroup paradigm and contribute to the literature by examining whether positive opinions of refugees’ impact on the host society are related to host nationals’ positive behavioural intentions towards them. Specifically, the study investigated (1) the mediating role of social proximity in the relationship between positive opinions of refugees’ impact and readiness to assist them and (2) symbolic and realistic threats as potential moderators that might influence this direct/indirect relationship. The results provide initial evidence of the important role of positive opinions of refugees’ impact on the host community in promoting positive behavioural intentions towards newcomers via indirect association with closer social proximity. Moreover, our findings suggest that this relationship might be particularly beneficial for host nationals who perceive immigrants as imposing a realistic threat to their lives and to society as a whole—individuals who tend to be amongst the most prejudice-prone and resistant to change. 

I Policy Briefen undersöker författarna effekterna och värdet av formella politiska rättigheter, såsom rösträtten. Författarna ställer frågan om huruvida möjligheten att rösta för utländska medborgare i kommunal- och landstingsval i Sverige påverkar individernas benägenhet att bli svenska medborgare.

I Policy Briefen analyseras svenska administrativa data som i kombination med institutionella förhållanden skapat en kvasi-slumpmässig fördelning av rösträtten, det vill säga variationen av invandrarnas invandringsdatum. Här undersöks nettoeffekten för tre grupper av invandrare. Detta utifrån levnadsstandarden i ursprungsländerna, som skiljer sig åt i hur de reagerar på möjligheten av att få delta i den demokratiska processen i Sverige.

Bevelander observes that economic and structural changes in the European economy have led to a gradual increase in the low-skilled service sector, as well as an increased demand for educated workers in the production of high-tech content. The increase in the number of humanitarian migrants being received by European states, as well as the subsequent family reunion migration, has further weakened the economic integration of migrants in Europe. In addition to this, these migrants have to overcome a number of thresholds to be successful in the labor market. Policies addressing this problem have primarily focused on an individual migrant's shortcomings but have not addressed the structural barriers individual migrants face, which hamper their economic integration. Continuation of this state of affairs will both increase marginalization and segregation of immigrants and contribute to growing anti-immigrant sentiment, thus undermining the legitimacy of migration and welfare states. 

This chapter provides an overview of migration trends in the principal welfare states with a focus on (1) employment of migrants - as a key indicator of integration - and (2) the factors that affect labor market integration of immigrants in the host societies. We look next at (3) the fiscal impact of first-generation immigrants before (4) developing a comparison of labor market and social inclusion programs designed to enhance the integration of immigrants. Finally, (5) we explore four national models of migration management to illustrate the policy dilemmas that welfare states face, including the challenge of delivering public services to asylum seekers. We argue that there is not a single policy that encapsulates best practice for managing migration in welfare states, but that granting rights to immigrants up front is the key to integration and to long-term positive outcomes for the immigrants, the economy, and the welfare state.

Population aging presents a looming challenge for sustaining intergenerational transfers from the economically productive population to dependent elderly. This chapter offers an interdisciplinary perspective on whether immigration may alleviate this economic challenge for an aging welfare state. Specifically, it demonstrates how immigration may be beneficial from a pure demographic perspective, but less so or costly from an economic perspective.

We still know remarkably little about the voting behavior of immigrant populations, and in particular, the children of immigrants – who grow up in the same society as their contemporaries, but may be subject to different patterns of socialization. This article uses verified voting behavior in Swedish municipal elections to offer at least two new perspectives on these questions. First, we are able to separate out the impacts of family socialization, general societal socialization, and citizenship acquisition on electoral participation. Second, we are also able to add to our knowledge of the differences in political participation levels between different groups of foreign-background voters.

Background The existing literature suggests that positive parenting might serve as a protective factor against immigrant adolescents' engagement in externalizing difficulties when they are exposed to negative experiences of ethnic derogation. To date, little is known, however, about whether different dimensions of positive parenting may moderate the detrimental impact of ethnic harassment at school on immigrant youth's antisocial behavior. Objective This study aimed to investigate which specific dimensions of positive parenting may act as a buffer against the detrimental impact of ethnic harassment at school on immigrant adolescents' antisocial behavior (i.e., delinquency and violence). Method Using longitudinal data, we followed first- and second-generation immigrant adolescents (N = 365; Mage = 13.93, SD = .80; 46% girls; 37% first-generation) in Sweden over a period of one year. Data collection at Time 1 (T1) was completed in the spring semester of the school year, and Time 2 (T2) assessments took place a year after the first data collection. We ran a series of regressions analyses via the SPSS PROCESS macro for each dimension of positive parenting behavior and each type of antisocial behavior. Results We found that ethnically harassed immigrant adolescents who received parental warmth, perceived their influence on family decisions and whose parents were aware of their children's daily activities were less likely to engage in delinquency and violence one year later. In addition, we saw that immigrant youth whose parents actively sought information about their offsprings' lives were less prone to display violence in the face of ethnic harassment. Conclusions The results suggest that parents are important in overriding the noxious effects of negative peer interactions targeting their children's ethnic background, even during an adolescence marked by significant changes in child-parent and child-peer relationships. These findings might inform the development of intervention components for testing in interventions studies aimed at preventing immigrant youths' antisocial behavior and future involvement in violent criminal offences.

In this paper, we investigate whether integration policy improves refugees' economic performance, specifically examining the effects on refugees' income of Sweden's 2010 reform of the introduction programme (or IP). We also evaluate how the reform effects vary depending on refugees' gender and educational attainment. Our key finding shows a strong positive effect of the reform on refugees' income, immediately after the completion of the IP. More importantly, this positive effect intensifies over time, with no signs of diminishing, which implies a longer-term effect of the reform. Furthermore, the effects of the reform do not significantly vary between men and women or between the highly educated and the less-educated, suggesting that the new Swedish IP benefits refugees to the same extent, regardless of their gender and educational attainment.

What are the long-term differences in the propensity of immigrants to acquire destination country citizenship under different institutional contexts and how do these vary between migrant groups? This article draws on micro-level longitudinal data from administrative registers in Denmark, the Netherlands, and Sweden-three countries with widely different and changing requirements for the acquisition of citizenship-to track the naturalization propensity of eight complete migrant cohorts (1994-2001) up to 21 years after migration. We find that after two decades in the destination country, cumulative naturalization rates vary remarkably with over 80 per cent of migrants in Sweden, two-thirds in the Netherlands, and only around a third in Denmark having acquired citizenship. We observe lower rates and delayed naturalization for migrants, especially among those with lower levels of education, after language requirements and integration tests were introduced in Denmark and the Netherlands. Dual citizenship acceptance in the Netherlands and Sweden, by contrast, is associated with durably higher citizenship acquisition rates, especially, among migrants from EU and highly developed countries. These findings highlight the long-term but conditional relevance of citizenship policy for immigrant naturalization.

This thematic paper deals with integration policies concerning persons who aregranted international protection in EU Member States. It acknowledges that there are two general trends in integration policies - a civic turn and a local turn. The civic turn implies more integration requirements for migrants, decided upon by the state, that have an impact on the legal status of migrant newcomers. On the other hand, the local turn implies less national involvement with cities instead handling more of the integration policies, including funding and policy measures.

The paper then describes four different models for the integration of beneficiaries of international protection: a national government-led model, a project based/multilevel governance model, a laissez-faire model, and a NGO-led model.

Using a combination of logit, and OLS regressions we ask if the labour force outcomes for Polish immigrants differ across two immigration policy regimes (Canada and Sweden). Specifically, we compare the employment and earnings prospects of Polish immigrants and their children in Canada and Sweden using data that is similar in quality and timing. We find that in general, Polish immigrants, while facing substantial penalties compared to native-born workers fare better in Canada than in Sweden in terms of employment and income. As expected, second generation Poles fare much better than their immigrant counterparts in terms of employment and earnings differentials and have similar outcomes to the native-born majority in both countries. Membership in the EU fundamentally changed migration flows from Poland. In light of this we also look at how post-2004 Polish migrants have fared in both Canada and Sweden.

In a globalised world with an increasing division of labour, the competition for highly skilled individuals-regardless of their origin-is growing, as is the value of such individuals for national economies. Yet the majority of studies analysing the economic integration of immigrants shows that those who are highly skilled also have substantial hurdles to overcome: their employment rates and salaries are lower and they face a higher education-to-occupation mismatch compared to highly skilled natives. This paper contributes to the paucity of studies on the employment patterns of highly skilled immigrants to Sweden by providing an overview of the socio-demographic characteristics, labour-market participation and occupational mobility of highly educated migrants in Sweden. Based on a statistical analysis of register data, we compare their employment rates, salaries and occupational skill level and mobility to those of immigrants with lower education and with natives. The descriptive analysis of the data shows that, while highly skilled immigrants perform better than those with a lower educational level, they never catch up with their native counterparts. Our regression analyses confirm these patterns for highly skilled migrants. Furthermore, we find that reasons for migration matter for highly skilled migrants' employment outcomes, with labour migrants having better employment rates, income and qualification-matched employment than family reunion migrants and refugees.

The Swedish case study focuses on two kinds of place-based strategies, namely sustainable urban development (SUD) and community led local development (CLLD) strategies as these were implemented in the Malmö functional urban area (FUA) during the programming period 2014–2020. The SUD strategy is part of the Skåne-Blekinge Programme and is implemented in the inner urban area of the Malmö City56. The CLLD strategy is implemented in two CLLD areas, the areas of Leader Lundaland and Leader Söderslätt. These are the two southwesternmost CLLD areas57 in Sweden, and they encircle the city of Malmö, located on the west coast of Scania, connecting Sweden with Denmark and the continent via the Öresund bridge. Leader Lundaland and Leader Söderslätt comprise five municipalities each58. For the purpose of this report the functional urban area of Malmö along the outer borders of these municipalities has been considered. In fact, the case study perimeter deviates slightly from the functional urban area as defined by EUROSTAT; in our case study the Eslöv municipality is included, although it is not in the area defined by EUROSTAT (see figure 1)59. This definition also means that one municipality, the Burlöv municipality, is included in the Malmö functional area though it is not targeted by any of the strategies.

The literature on citizenship policies is flourishing, yet we know little of which naturalisation requirements majorities and minorities find reasonable, and how they view existing citizenship regimes. Drawing on original survey data with young adults in Norway (N = 3535), comprising immigrants and descendants with origins from Iraq, Pakistan, Poland, Somalia and Turkey, as well as a non-immigrant majority group, this article examines whether perceptions of ideal citizenship criteria and assessments of Norway's current rules differ between groups. In terms of ideal citizenship criteria, we find a striking similarity across groups when looking at six different dimensions of citizenship policy. When merged into an index and estimated in a multivariate regression model, we find that both immigrants and descendants are significantly more liberal than natives are, yet the differences are small. When assessing the semi-strict citizenship regime in Norway, we find that immigrants are significantly more positive towards the current rules than natives. The results lend little support to recent work on 'strategic' and 'instrumental' citizenship and point instead to a close to universal conception of the terms of membership acquisition in Norway. This suggests that states may operate with moderate integration requirements while maintaining the legitimacy of the citizenship institution.

Sweden, like many other European countries, has lower employment levels for the foreign-born compared to native-born Swedes. To some extent, this could be due to the country's relatively large intake of refugees. However, few studies have focused entirely on the employment integration of these refugees. In order to fill this gap, we use detailed longitudinal Swedish register data of three arrival cohorts (1998-2000). These data cover the employment of refugees from different countries of origin in Sweden in the first 12 years since their arrival. In line with related work and theoretical considerations and with respect to group characteristics, outmigration, and employment integration over time, we find differences between dissimilar groups of refugees. The findings concerning employment integration decrease to a small degree after rich regression adjustments. Moreover, maybe more surprisingly, we find a very similar result within the main groups of refugees from countries such as Bosnia, Ethiopia, and Eritrea. Women from these groups, in particular, have similar or higher employment probabilities than Swedish-born women after between 5 and 8 years in the country. Overall, each group managed to catch up to a non-negligible, yet varying, degree compared to related empirical evidence from other countries. The role of contextual factors in the refugee sending and receiving countries is highlighted.

This chapter describes current changes in migration flows and politics in Sweden, before presenting and discussing the reactions to these changes in civil society – the mobilization of both pro- and anti-migration sentiments – which reflect the polarized sentiments towards immigration in Swedish society.First, this report conveys information about migration flows to Sweden before, during and after the refugee reception crisis of 2015. In 2016 in particular, Sweden had a major intake of asylum seekers, which prompted new legislative measures to manage this. Second, we emphasize transformations in the party-political landscape before, during and after the refugee reception crisis of 2015. In this period there was also a rhetorical shift in mainstream politics, heralding an emphasis on security in order to protect the Swedish model. The mainstream-right bloc was also split in two. Third, we study the actions and reactions in response to these changes in civil society. The everyday experiences of problems with integration stand in contrast with international norms of solidarity. We conclude that the crisis enabled a window of opportunity for the mobilization of both pro- and anti-migration sentiments in civil society.

Despite having a celebrated labor market integration policy, the immigrant–native employment gap in Sweden is one of the largest in the OECD. From a cross-country perspective, a key explanation might be migrant admission group composition. In this study we use high-quality detailed Swedish register data to estimate male employment gaps between non-EU/EES labour, family reunification and humanitarian migrants and natives. Moreover, we test if differences in human capital are able to explain rising employment integration heterogeneity. Our results indicate that employment integration is highly correlated with admission category. Interestingly, differences in human capital, demographic and contextual factors seem to explain only a small share of this correlation. Evidence from auxiliary regressions suggests that low transferability of human capital among humanitarian and family migrants might be part of the story. The article highlights the need to understand and account for migrant admission categories when studying employment integration.

This Key Country report focuses on electoral registration and turnout in Sweden, where the most recent general election was held on 9 September 2018. It provides a historical perspective on patterns of electoral registration and turnout among foreignborn voters (non-citizens and Swedish citizens) in local and regional elections. In a handful of municipalities, a significant proportion of the electorate comprises non- Swedish citizens with voting rights. However, the likelihood of voting is higher among foreign-born voters who have acquired Swedish citizenship – which potentially leaves non-citizen residents under-represented in local and regional representative organs. A second focus is on non-resident Swedish citizens in the country’s national elections. The number of Swedish voters abroad has increased in every election since 1968. Though a very small proportion of the total electorate, their ballots make a slight difference to the distribution of seats in the Swedish parliament, the Riksdag.

The paper starts from the observation that research on immigrants’ integration trajectories needs detailed information, both objective and attitudinal, and ideally longitudinal. This study uses the cases of Denmark and Sweden – whose registers produce detailed records about all natives’ and immigrants’ lives in their host countries – in order to, first, review existing research on immigrants and their integration and, second, discuss the way in which register data are used, their caveats and their potential. The study finds that, in Denmark and Sweden, registers provide systematic objective data which are fully available to researchers and have the potential to help in the collection of high-quality subjective data. However, the population registers have some traits which may impact on the representativeness of the samples. The authors argue that, if researchers are aware of the caveats, registers can be used to obtain representative samples of immigrants, and register data can be complemented with survey-based attitudinal data, thus opening up new research opportunities for testing propositions on integration theories.

In this article, we analyse the connection between media exposure and opinion polls for political parties or "the media influence". We compare two parliamentary periods in Sweden: 2006-2010 and 2010-2014. Our results show that the media is important for the anti-immigration party, the Sweden Democrats (SD) in the first period. This is not the case, or at least less so, for the other parliamentary parties. In the second period, media exposure wanes in importance for explaining poll fluctuations as well as shifts from national to regional media for the Sweden Democrats. These findings are in consonance with previous research which underlines that the media's influence on electoral performance differs before and after the party has crossed the electoral threshold to the national parliament.

Knowledge about electoral participation of people with foreign background helps us understand how political engagement in immigrant countries can develop in the long term. The current study focues on Sweden. We conduct multigeneration study at the individual level of people born abroad or with foreign background, based on records of their actual participation. With the municipal elections in 2014 as a case study, we confirm previous research on immigrant voting behavior, and explore differences between how foreign-born and Swedish-born with at least one foreign-born parent exercise their democratic rights. Differences between groups with a foreign background are also studied.

Migration in all its forms is a prominent phenomenon, with far-ranging implications for society. Museums, being important educational institutions, not only reflect society, but what they display has the potential to affect our understanding of the world. When museums become places where people can explore the realities of migration, transnational connections, and human rights, they become even more relevant as cultural institutions, and can help drive positive social change, encouraging solidarity and sustainable development. In the book Museums in a Time of Migration, leading scholars and museum curators reflect on museums’ engagement in migration issues. New and innovative museum projects around the world are presented in telling analyses of the theoretical and practical realities. Special attention is paid to the museums’ roles, representations, collections, and collaborations in a time of migration.

Using data for the period 1968–2001, this article assesses the influence of partner choice and origin country characteristics on the propensity of immigrants to naturalize in Sweden. Marriage to a foreign‐born Swedish citizen increases the naturalization propensity, and its effect increases strongly when the spouse naturalizes during the same year. The analysis suggests that a lower level of civic and political freedom or relative GDP per capita in the individual's country of origin is associated with an elevated probability of naturalization. During the period of study, originating from a country which allows for dual citizenship did not systematically elevate the probability to naturalize; this probability was accentuated, however, if the individual originated from a context characterized by a low degree of civic and political freedom.

The aim of this article was twofold: first, to provide an overview of immigration and integration policies in Sweden, and second, to analyse the labour market integration of humanitarian migrants who arrived in Sweden between 1998 and 2012 relative to other migrants and natives.

This paper provides an overview of the socio-demographic characteristics, labour-market participation and occupational mobility of highly educated immigrants1 in Sweden. Based on a statistical analysis of register data, we compare their employment rates, salaries and occupational skill level and mobility to those of immigrants with lower education and with natives. Among the questions addressed in this paper are: What is the socio-demographic profile of highly skilled immigrants to Sweden? Where do they come from and how do they enter the country? Are there differences in highly educated immigrants’ employment rates by citizenship status, migration entry route and place of birth? How do the salaries of highly educated men and women compare between immigrants and natives? What is the education-to-job match for them? How do occupational mobility patterns compare for highly educated immigrants versus those with lower education? Finally, are there differences in occupational skill level for highly educated migrants by entry route? Our results show that, while highly skilled immigrants perform better than those with a lower educational level, they never catch up with their native counterparts.

Summary Democracy gives us opportunities to participate in politics and thereby to influence legislation, policy and decisions. There are several ways in which political participation may take place. The focus of this book is representative democracy, to elect representatives to political assemblies and to stand as representative for such assemblies. There are major differences between different groups in society regarding the actual use of these rights. Such differences are usually called representation gaps. The aim of the book is to discuss participation in elections and representation in political assemblies, focusing on the differences between foreign born and domestic born. We ask the following main questions: 1. What is the electoral turnout among foreign born and persons with foreign background? 2. How do foreign born vote? Do they vote for individual candidates to a larger extent than domestic born and which parties do they vote for? 3. Which factors explain being elected as representatives and how may the representation gap between foreign and domestic born be explained? 4. What are the characteristics of nomination processes in political parties and how do these create opportunities and obstacles for equal representation? 5. What role do ethnic and minority associations play for political participation in Stockholm and other European big cities? 6. What do we know about measures taken to increase voting among foreign born? The result shows that foreign born take part in elections to a much lesser degree than domestic born and that there are differences between domestic born with two parents born abroad and other domestic born. The propensity to vote is larger among those that have one parent born in Sweden – in particular a mother – than those having two foreign born parents. Voting for individuals is somewhat more common among persons with foreign background, in particular in elections for national parliament, than among other voters. Earlier studies have shown that persons with foreign background tend to vote for left parties to a larger extent than others. This is also the case in Sweden. Persons with foreign background vote for the Social Democrats and the Left Party to somewhat higher extent than others, in particular in elections for the national parliament. Immigrant representation in political assemblies has increased over the past decades but foreign born is still an underrepresented group. Explanations addressed in the book are individual resources and contextual factors. Results show little support for resource based explanations and the explanatory power of contextual factors is also limited, with the exception of the number of seats in local assemblies compared to the number of eligible voters. Up to one third of the representation gap on an aggregated level can be explained by the fact that foreign born more often live in larger municipalities where the number of seats in the local councils, in relation to the number of voters, is lower than in smaller municipalities. The political party’s nomination process is another factor relevant to consider when discussing underrepresentation. Internal factors of parties affecting the likelihood to be nominated as candidate are discussed. Networks are important in this respect. They play both an including and excluding role. Being a politician with immigrant background may offer a way into politics but may in the long run also be an obstacle for advancement. Other obstacles discussed include thresholds for participation, internal democratic processes of parties, and cost-benefit analysis. The question about the role of ethnic and minority associations for political participation is discussed in the book. The focus is on comparing the situation in Stockholm with other big cities in Europe. The results show that even though more persons are engaged in these associations in Stockholm, they do not offer better opportunities for political integration than in other larger cities in Europe. This suggests that economic and political support of ethnic associations plays a less important role for political integration than expected. At the same time, the results do not suggest that ethnic associations hinder political integration by contributing to isolation from the rest of society. Finally, measures taken by state and municipalities to increase voter turnout are discussed. There is limited research about the most effective ways to affect turnout but there is some support that meetings and interaction with voters have positive effects on the turnout. Meetings with voters have been central to measures involving so called "democracy ambassadors", which several municipalities have worked with during the last elections. Important to these measures is the attempt to avoid problems of earlier measures, such as one way communication.

In immigrant-receiving countries, immigrants are often concentrated in residential neighbourhoods with high concentrations of immigrants. In addition, they are concentrated in workplaces with high concentrations of immigrants. Many researchers have assumed that these are two sides of the same coin, so that policy affecting residential segregation could be expected to influence workplace segregation. Using Swedish register data for 2007, we directly assess whether immigrants who live in residential neighbourhoods concentrated with immigrants also work in firms concentrated with immigrants. We find that there is very little correlation between residential and workplace segregation, suggesting that policy could profitably target both types of segregation separately.

The study sets out to provide a better understanding of the emerging challenges in policy targeting the labour-market integration of refugees. What are the strategies and practices implemented in different EU Member States to facilitate access into employment? What do we know about their effectiveness? What are good practices and lessons learned in different countries? The study is based on nine detailed country case studies of the following EU Member States: Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

Despite having one of the most celebrated labor market integration policies, the native immigrant employment gap in Sweden is one of the largest among the OECD countries. In this study, we use unique Swedish register data to try to explain the employment gap between male immigrants and natives. The results show that the traditional human capital theory only explains a small share of the immigrant-native gap. After controlling for human capital, demographic and contextual factors, large unexplained employment gaps still persists between immigrants and natives and between migrant categories. Our analysis indicates that admission category is an important determinant of employment integration, and that humanitarian and family migrants suffer from low transferability of their country specific human capital. The article highlights the need to consider migrant categories in integration research, and take into account international human capital transferability when explaining employment outcomes for immigrants.

For the first time since the Second World War, the total number of refugees amounts to more than 50 million people. Only a minority of these refugees seek asylum, and even fewer resettle in developed countries. At the same time, politicians, the media, and the public are worried about a lack of economic integration. Refugees start at a lower employment and income level, but subsequently “catch up” to the level of family unification migrants. However, both refugees and family migrants do not “catch up” to the economic integration levels of labor migrants. A faster integration process would significantly benefit refugees and their new host countries.

Not only Swedish studies, but also several international studies, claim an increase in anti-Semitic attitudes in recent decades. As prejudice is acquired in the early years of socialization, and/or is innate and fairly stable over the life cycle, examining adolescents’ attitudes is vitally important. Hence, by controlling for individual demographic and socio-economic background factors, we study two interrelated questions: Has anti-Semitism among Swedish secondary school-age youths changed between 2003 and 2009? Are changes equal across groups, with a specific focus on religious groups? Using two unique cross-section surveys of secondary school-age students in Sweden for the years 2003 and 2009, we try to address the above questions. Our analysis shows, in contrast to the views of the general public and other related studies, that anti-Semitism has decreased slightly during the examined period. Moreover, the study finds a variation in anti-Semitism by religious affiliation: it has increased among Muslim youth, but remains stable in other groups.

Democratic theory seldom meets democratic practice and fluctuations in public opinion and media representations of the same political actor do not easily converge. In September 2010, Sweden’s anti-immigration party, the Sweden Democrats (SD), crossed the electoral threshold to participate in Sweden’s parliament and it has continued to grow. In this article, we analyze the effect of media exposure on fluctuations in opinion polls for political parties, or the media effect. Our results show the media effect is more important for SD than for other parliamentary parties. Media exposure sometimes matters, but not to the same degree everywhere and not necessarily at the same time.