Swedish Migration Research Articles

Preferenser och intressen hos Svenskt Näringsliv och Landsorganisationen om arbetskraftsinvandring under 2000-talets inledning

Preferences and interests of SN and LO about labour migration in the early 2000sThe article uses a political economy approach to analyze the preferences of the social partners SN and LO and to identify the coincided and disparate interests which the two organizations tried to defend in relation to labour migration in the debate prior to the Swedish labour migration policy reform in 2008. In contrast to presumptions by Varieties of Capitalism (VoC) scholars,the results of this article reveal that SN has preferred a market-liberal labour migration policy regime at odds with institutional traditions of the Swedish labour market model. However, LO has instead preferred a state-coordinated and regulated labour migration policy regime. In contrast to SN, LO’s preferences reflected basic trade union interests to limit the supply of labour and to minimize potential negative effects for the functioning of the Swedish labour market model. Moreover, the article suggests the importance of changed power relations between the social partners and a shift of Swedish government to explain SN’s influence in the debate prior to the labour migration policy change 2008 in a market-liberal direction.

Exit, Voice, and Political Change: Evidence from Swedish Mass Migration to the United States

During the Age of Mass Migration, 30 million Europeans emigrated to the United States. We study the long-term political effects of this large-scale migration episode on origin communities using detailed historical data from Sweden, a major sending country in the period. To instrument for emigration cumulated over several decades, we exploit severe local frost shocks that sparked an initial wave of emigration, interacted with within-country travel costs. Because Swedish emigration was highly path dependent, the initial shocks strongly predict total emigration over 50 years. Our estimates show that emigration substantially increased membership in local labor organizations, the strongest political opposition groups at the time. Furthermore, emigration caused greater strike participation, and mobilized voter turnout and support for left-wing parties in national elections. We interpret these findings as an increase in citizens' bargaining power and demand for political change. Emigration also had effects on actual political change. Municipalities with more emigration exhibit higher welfare expenditures per capita, both before and after the introduction of democracy. In addition, local governments become more likely to adopt inclusive political institutions. Together, our findings indicate that large-scale emigration can achieve significant and long-lasting effects on the political equilibrium in origin communities.

THE «CASE» OF GRIGORY ALEXANDROV AND THE PROBLEM OF SWEDISH AUTHORITIES ATTITUDE TOWARDS RUSSIAN POST-REVOLUTIONARY IMMIGRANTS IN THE 1920-IES

The artilce analyses the biography of Grigory Alexandrov, a Russian emigrant in Sweden, who resided in the counry before and after the Russian revolution of 1917 and was involved in complicated relations with Bolshevik agents and Swedish socialists. Basing upon Swedish archival material the author aims to fill in certain gaps in the biography of G. Alexandrov and analyse it in the context of Swedish authorities’ and society’s attitude towards emigrants from Russia in the early 1920-ies. The main goal of the article is to investigate certain traits of Swedish migration policy and public opinion about emigrants from Russia, such as fear of communist influence and suspions against Russians. Another aspect of the present work is to reconstruct the biography of G. Alexandrov, which was not published yet.

Collaboration patterns among Swedish professionals in the repatriation of unaccompanied asylum-seeking refugee children: an explorative study

This study explores patterns of collaboration between Swedish professionals involved in the repatriation of unaccompanied asylum-seeking refugee children. A qualitative case study methodology was used. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a total of 20 statutory social workers, social workers at care homes, police officers, Swedish Migration Board officers, and legal guardians. A thematic approach was used to analyse the data. The results showed low levels of collaboration among the professionals and the use of different strategies by the professionals to manage their work tasks. Patterns were found among the professionals: some tended to isolate themselves from interaction and acted on the basis of personal preference, and others tended to behave sensitively, withdraw, and become passive observers rather than active partners in the repatriation process. These behaviours made it difficult for the relevant professionals to employ dignity and efficiency in the repatriation of unaccompanied asylum-seeking refugee children.

Questioning Fairness in Swedish Asylum Decisions

This article examines Swedish asylum deliberations regarding families with children with severe apathy, a condition where the child gradually loses all bodily functions. The article outlines the political context and medical evidence that has evolved since the beginning of the 2000s. It uses case studies and frequencies drawing from a case-file inventory covering 24 families, many with minority belonging. The asylum process, case law and the decision makers' role in reiterating and interpreting the families' asylum narratives are explored, analysed and discussed using discourse analysis and interpreted using intersectional theory. Findings suggest that the asylum narratives are greatly reduced and reformulated in a way that seems detrimental to state obligations towards, for example, rape victims. Findings also suggest that political persecution should be taken more seriously by Swedish migration authorities. Finally, evidence indicates a need for a feminist perspective, and an overall strategy, at authority level that does not discriminate.

Family Migration Policies and Politics

This article aims at characterizing and explaining Swedish family migration policies from a European comparative point of view. The analysis shows that Sweden applies equally strict eligibility rules for members beyond the nuclear family as most other European countries. Moreover, Sweden introduced such stricter rules much earlier than other countries. In other respects, however, Swedish family migration policies stand out as exceptionally liberal in European comparison; few, if any, requirements are imposed on the sponsor and joining family members acquire equal rights status either immediately or 2 years after admission. To explain this situation, the article analyzes political processes behind two important family migration policy decisions in 1997 and 2010. The conclusion is that Swedish welfare state ideology and party politics importantly contribute to understanding why Sweden diverges from European trends in family migration policies.

Swedish Employers and Trade Unions, Labor Migration and the Welfare State—Perspectives on Swedish Labor Migration Policy Debates during the 1960s and the 2000s

This article uses a political economy approach and explores the nexus between labor migration and the welfare state and how its specificities have been viewed and presented by organized interests of employers and trade unions in Swedish labor migration policy debates during the 1960s and the 2000s. The analysis demonstrates that the Swedish Employers’ Confederation (SAF) and its organizational successor the Swedish Confederation of Enterprise (SN) have preferred a market-liberal labor migration policy. Over time, a liberal immigration policy has been viewed by employers as an important policy solution to extend levels of economic growth, increase firm competitiveness, and maintain funding for generous welfare state services. However, since the 1960s the Swedish Trade Union Confederation (LO) has preferred a state-coordinated and regulated labor migration policy. In LO’s perspective, a regulated immigration policy is a fundamental precondition for guaranteeing workers’ rights, and for minimizing potential negative effects for the functioning of the Swedish labor market model and for a prosperous Swedish welfare state.

Sociomaterial Negotiation of Conflicting Institutional Logics at the Swedish Migration Board

This study combines the institutional logics perspective with a sociomaterial lens to explore how a new element of an institutional logic is negotiated and manifested in sociomaterial practic-es at the micro-level of organizing. Building on recent research emphasizing the role of agency in the micro-level dynamics and use of logics, we show how the interpretive flexibility of a new and contested element of a logic (Lean Practices) is used to negotiate the influence of competing institutional logics. Moreover, by showing how the development and implementation of a new information system intensifies the negotiation between conflicting institutional logics and manifests meanings in daily work routines, our study sheds light on the constitutive role of information technologies in the negotiation and transformation of institutional logics. While previous research has concentrated on processes of translation between global ideas and local context, this study recognizes how local negotiations and adaptations of new elements such as management concepts can be understood as sociomaterial enactments.

The Finnish and Swedish Migration Dynamics and Transnational Social Spaces

This article contributes to debates about the long-term development of migration dynamics. The argument is based on a study of the transnational dynamics of the migration flows between Finland and Sweden. The two countries provide a good case for studying the long-term development of migration patterns, since there has been a full freedom of movement and the migration patterns are well documented. The article argues that the postwar labor migration from Finland to Sweden created a transnational social space that still today facilitates migration between the two countries. Although Finnish citizens dominate the migration flows in both directions, the number of Swedish migrants has steadily increased. This new pattern can be explained by the development of the transnational social space involving an increasing number of mixed families.

Migrant precarity and future challenges to labour standards in Sweden

Fears of a ‘race to the bottom’ in labour standards may have been overstated. Nevertheless, using Sweden as a case study, it is argued that the diminished capacity of trade unions to defend labour standards following the Laval judgement of the European Court of Justice, together with a decline in trade union density, a limited remit of enforcement authorities and recent changes to the Swedish labour migration regime, may have detrimental impacts on labour standards, particularly in low-skill low-wage occupations. In combination, these developments are creating new spaces for migrant precariousness within the context of a formerly well-regulated Swedish labour market model.

Explaining Local Swedish Refugee Policy

In the Swedish migration system, the local level plays a crucial role since the municipalities have full autonomy to accept or decline refugees. This has created a considerable variation in numbers of immigrants among municipalities, and there is a large variation in local societies' willingness to receive refugees. In this study, we focus on all the Swedish municipalities for a time span of several years and derive from economic, demographic, socio-cultural, and explanatory factors that have been put forward in earlier research. Through quantitative analysis, we can show how income, the unemployment rate, population, and support for the right-wing party negatively vary with the willingness to receive refugees. Moreover, the distribution of income results in the opposite significant direction. These results, partly contradicting theory, show the importance of a nuanced and holistic theoretical base in further research.

Comparative Migration History by the Numbers (and the Letters)

Donald Harmon Akenson of Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, has capped a career of migra- tion scholarship with an ambitious interpretation of Irish and Swedish migration, particularly their em...

Safeguarding a Child Perspective in Asylum Reception: Dilemmas of Children's Case Workers in Sweden

This article examines the perceptions and practices of Children’s Case Workers (CCW), employed at the Swedish Migration Board to safeguard children’s interests within the Swedish asylum reception s ...

Managing unlawful feelings: the emotional regime of the Swedish migration board

How do organisations develop emotional regimes that make perfect sense to members but appear paradoxical and even morally outrageous to non-members? Exploring the case of a department for the investigation of asylum applications at the Swedish Migration Board (MB), I argue that through repeated and various types of interaction rituals, an emotional regime is enacted and sustained that provides employees with a sense of authenticity, meaning and organisational loyalty. At the department procedural correctness and the professional epitomise the emotional regime and the preferred organisational identity, including ways of acting on and managing emotions. The organisation becomes an emotionally self-enclosed system.

Making the refugee multiple: The effects of classification work

This paper reports on a study of how the Swedish Migration Board, the Public Employment Service, the Refugee Units, and the Social Services jointly support refugees from their arrival in Sweden into employment. Among the various practices involved in this process, refugees are cast in at least four different roles, mainly by organizations, thus imposing a series of social positions to be managed. While such heterogeneous positions are not necessarily problematic, the Swedish system for integration is often portrayed as not very successful in pursuing its political and humanist goals. Some of its shortcomings may be explained by the diversity of the political, social, practical, and financial objectives of the organizations involved in the process. The paper concludes that a sociology of classification is useful for revealing how members of organizations enact social realities.

Tobacco Use, Body Mass Index, and the Risk of Leukemia and Multiple Myeloma: A Nationwide Cohort Study in Sweden

In a prospective cohort study of more than 330,000 Swedish construction workers, we explored the effect of tobacco smoking, oral moist snuff use, and body mass index (BMI) on the risk of developing leukemia (excluding chronic lymphocytic leukemia) and multiple myeloma (MM). Study subjects were participants of a health surveillance system within the building industry. Record linkage to the nationwide Swedish cancer registry, migration registry, and cause of death registry made a comprehensive follow-up available. A total of 372 incident cases of leukemia and 520 subjects with MM was ascertained. An increase in risk of acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) was observed in current smokers (incidence rate ratio, 1.50; 95% confidence interval, 1.06-2.11). Furthermore, there was an indication of a possible association between smoking intensity and risk of acute lymphocytic leukemia. Results on snuff use as well as BMI showed no association. This study confirms the role of smoking as a risk factor for AML and gives no support to the hypothesis of a role of snuff use or BMI level on the risk of leukemia or MM.

Granting asylum or not? Migration board personnel's beliefs about deception

This study investigated beliefs about deception held by Swedish Migration Board personnel working with asylum cases (n=67), and by a control sample of students (n=69). A questionnaire including both closed and open-ended questions was used. The purpose was to achieve further understanding of Migration Board (MB) officers’ beliefs about deception as they assess reliability of individuals from different ethnic backgrounds. In the asylum process, physical evidence is frequently missing, and the ability to distinguish between truth-telling and lying asylum-seekers is hence crucial. Overall, the beliefs held by MB personnel were not more in tune with research findings on objective cues to deception than were the beliefs of the students. In addition, MB personnel often refrained from taking a stand concerning the relation between specific behaviours and deception; they exhibited substantial within-group disagreement and expressed a need for information about issues of deception. The results point to an objective need and a subjective request for education concerning deception detection.

Language Analysis in the Context of the Asylum Process: Procedures, Validity, and Consequences

In 1993, the language section of the Swedish Migration Board initiated the production of documents they called "language analyses" to aid in the processing of asylum seekers. Today, 11 years later, 2 privately owned companies in Stockholm produce these documents. These companies have produced language analyses not only for the Swedish Migration board, but also for the Department of Immigration, Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs in Australia, the Immigration Authority in Austria, the National Police Departments in Denmark and Finland, the Home Office in Great Britain, the Ministry of Justice in the Netherlands, the Migration Authority in Norway, the National Board for Refugees in Switzerland and the Refugee Status Branch in New Zealand. There are also government departments in other European countries (including Belgium, Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands) that produce language analyses. Very little information about Language Analysis in the Asylum Process (LAAP) is readily available to the public. Questions concerning how it is done, how it is used, what its purpose is, the consequences of its use, and, finally and perhaps most important, how successful it is in fulfilling the requirements of those who make use of it have not yet been fully answered. The aim of this article is to shed as much light as currently available resources permit on these questions. It also argues that research into this field is essential to answer the questions more fully, and thereby allow governments and police authorities to make informed decisions about their use of such documents in the asylum process.

The risk of pancreatic cancer following pancreatitis: An association due to confounding?

BACKGROUND & AIMS: Chronic pancreatitis has been suggested as a causal risk factor for pancreatic cancer in a recent study. The aim of this study was to clarify the relationship between chronic pancreatitis and pancreatic cancer.METHODS: All patients in the Swedish inpatient Register with a discharge diagnosis of pancreatitis from 1965 to 1983 were identified. They were stratified into subcohorts as follows: (1) one episode of unspecified pancreatitis (n = 823); (2) one episode of acute pancreatitis (n = 24,753); (3) recurrent pancreatitis (n = 7328); and (4) chronic pancreatitis (n = 4546). We also identified those with associated diagnoses indicating gallbladder disease or alcoholism. The patients were followed up through record linkage to the nationwide Swedish Cancer Register, Death Register, and Migration Register.RESULTS: After exclusion of cancers occurring in the first year, there were excess risks for pancreatic cancer in all subcohorts. However, the risks declined with time in all subcohorts. A persistent excess risk after 10 years was restricted to patients with associated alcohol abuse (standardized incidence ratio, 3.8; 95% confidence interval, 1.5-7.9).CONCLUSIONS: The findings are not consistent with reports that pancreatitis is causally associated with a long-term risk of pancreatic cancer. Selection bias, alcohol consumption, and smoking may contribute to some of the patterns of risk that have been observed.(Gastroenterology 1997 Aug;113(2):587-92)

Household migration and the local public sector: evidence from Sweden, 1981-1984.

"In this paper, the relationship between public sector attributes and household characteristics, and Swedish household migration, 1981-4, is studied. We report results separately for metropolitan and nonmetropolitan areas because the per capita levels of the tax base and intergovernmental grants are theoretically important migration determinants where population is sparse, whilst the tax rate may be more important where population is dense. Because fiscal influences are likely to be stronger for short-distance migration, we apply multinomial logit to a three-way choice set: staying and migrating short and long distances. Empirical results support our fiscal hypotheses and are consistent with previous findings on household characteristics." (SUMMARY IN FRE AND GER)