2011:10 "Grapes of wrath" in the green economy: Mobilities, global value chains and social effects on rural labour markets within the berry industry
The international goals to reach a "green economy" and "territorial
balance" are seriously challenged by the global value chain of the
Swedish berry industry. The industry is based on transnational labour
mobility from Asia, primarily Thailand, in order to pick berries under
severe working conditions. The migrant workers thus become part of the
local labour market in rural Sweden, which has simultaneous effects on
their rural origin in Thailand. Following this, the project aims to
investigate the transnational, global value chain of the Swedish berry
industry, and its´ translocal, social effects on rural areas in
sending and receiving countries. It will critically assess how the
above-mentioned international goals can be reached in a process where
power relations and inequalities are produced both on the local scale,
within countries, and on the international scale, between countries.
The project will be performed through "multi-sited ethnographies",
where contextual field studies based on observations and life story
interviews with migrants, berry companies and other key actors are
performed in rural areas in Sweden and Thailand. Further, the project
adopts an art-based methodology, through collaboration between
researchers and artists. Participating researcher: Charlotta Hedberg

2011:9 When the World goes Rural – Are International Migration Flows changing the Swedish Countryside? (Formas)
This project investigates international migration to the Swedish
countryside from demographic and transnational angles. The project is
interested in the influences and potential gains that the countryside
might obtain from international migration processes. International
migrants carry with them transnational networks, which tie places of
in- and out-migration together creating ‘transnational social spaces’.
Transnational networks can be influential both for the regions they
intersect with and for the migrants themselves. Regarding sparsely
populated regions, international migration has potential to act
stimulating in (at least) two ways: Demographically, they might
contribute to population growth and a younger population structure.
Moreover, migrants’ transnational networks might bring qualitative
aspects to the countryside while connecting the countryside to the
world. One part of the project analyses what international migration
means to rural labour markets, both through transnational
entrepreneurship, as a part of the local labour force and also the
employment situation of international migrants in rural areas. Participants in the project:Charlotta Hedberg, Stockholm University, Gunnel Forsberg, Stockholm University, Natasha Webster, Stockholm University, Ali Najib, Uppsala University, and Susanne Stenbacka, Uppsala University

2011:5 No Man’s Land: Detention and Expulsion in the Age of Migration
Globalization has increased the flow of people across Europe, bringing economic expansion and ethnic diversity. Open political and social borders have enhanced European integration and interdependence, creating a cosmopolitan European Union full of transnational citizens. Alongside this increased mobility, state coercion has been quietly on the rise. Since 1990, nearly every European democracy has increased incarceration for offenders and increased the use of detention and expulsion of migrants. This research project examines how immigrants and ethnic minorities have been caught in conflicts over global integration, neo-nationalism, and multiculturalism that are often expressed through the criminalization and penalization of perceived others. The criminalization of migrants, particularly through confinement and expulsion, enables member states to reassert sovereignty, control borders and regulate group membership, exposing the resilience of territorial citizenship in the age of migration. Participating researcher: Vanessa Barker

2011:3 Immigration, Bargaining and Reservation Wages
The literature on the effects of immigration on wages almost exclusively assumes a competitive labour market and immigration is studied as a supply shift. However, in many countries, like Sweden, wages are set in bargaining. In this project I investigate the effects of immigration on wages in a Nash bargaining framework. The mechanisms on how immigration may affect such wage setting are explored and the short and long term consequences of immigration are clarified. Conditions for wage convergence are studied. Participants: Per Lundborg

2011:2 Labour migrants from Central and Eastern Europe in the Nordic countries: Patterns of migration, working conditions and recruitment practices
This is a joint project with researchers in Norway, Denmark, Iceland and Poland. The Institute for Labour and Social Research (Fafo) in Oslo is responsible for the coordination of the project. Funding is received from the Nordic Council of Ministers. The aim of this project is to generate new knowledge about labour migration from Central and Eastern Europe to the Nordic countries. Researchers from SULCIS will be involved in two of the three main parts of the project. In the first subproject entitled "Changing patterns of labour migration to the Nordic countries", we will compare and analyse the composition, volume and direction of macro flows as well as the dynamics and driving forces behind these new patterns of international mobility. In the other subproject, we will analyze the role of recruitment and temporary work agencies. We particularly study the role of institutional mediators and agents for labour migration from Poland. These agencies may play an important role for polish immigrants when they want to establish a contact with the labour market in the host country. There is little knowledge about this rapidly growing industry. Specific questions that will be answered are: How common is the use of recruitment agents in the migration process to the different countries? Do formal agencies work as a substitute for informal networks? Do agencies help foreign workers with legal paperwork and do they provide them with information about their rights and obligations? Or do they channel migrants into less regulated and less favourable parts of the labour market? Do workers employed by agencies have different terms of employment than other workers? What are the similarities and differences between the Nordic countries in terms of regulations, contexts and outcomes on these issues?
Participating researchers (SULCIS): Pernilla Andersson Joona, Stina Petersson and Eskil Wadensjö

2010:2 The History of Swedish Immigration and Integration Policy
The Immigration and emigration calendar 2010 gives an overview of Swedish immigration and emigration policies during the last five centuries. The calendar describes developments in law and practice. It offers a resource to anyone interested in the history of migration to and from Sweden both to academic researchers and interested lay readers. The calendar does not claim to be exhaustive. The calendar is divided into thirteen chapters that deal with different aspects of immigration and emigration in Sweden. Chapter 1 provides a general overview of the legal and administrative decisions that have formed the basis for Swedish immigration and emigration policy. The calendar is then divided into three main parts. The first part (chapters 2-8) provides systematic accounts of the regulatory frameworks in policy areas based on the Swedish Migration Board's types of residence permit, namely labor migration, asylum and refugee migration, family reunification, unaccompanied children, visiting students, and adoptees. Chapter 8 focuses on irregular migrants. The second part (chapters 9-11) deals with Swedish citizenship legislation, integration policies and social protection for immigrants in Sweden. The last part (chapters 12-13) discusses the common Nordic labor market and the free movement of workers within the EU before 1995. Participating researcher: Julia Boguslaw.

2010:1 Do medical doctors lose from the immigration of medical doctors?
The effect of immigration on wages has been a central theme in research on the welfare effects of immigration. While estimates of labour demand curves suggest that immigration would have a sizable effect on local wages, only minor negative, if any, effects have been found in the empirical migration literature. However, by specifying more carefully the substitution effects of education and experience, George Borjas obtained considerably stronger effects. In this project, we focus on a group of workers whose substitutability can be defined in even more detail, namely medical doctors. There is hardly any substitutability from workers without a degree in medicine and, moreover, we have access to each native and immigrant doctor’s specialization, as well as their experience. This defined substitutability allows for credible estimations of wage (salary) effects. Results are presented in 2011 and show substantial effects on national as well as regional level. Participating researchers: Per Lundborg.

2008:9 The expansion of EU and the conditions for the new immigrants
The European Union has expanded in two steps in the 1990s. Before the expansion there was an intensive debate on if the immigrants from the new member countries would arrive to work or if many would be supported by the income transfer programs of the Swedish welfare state. “Social tourism” was used as a catchword for the latter form of immigration. In an earlier study we studied the conditions of the immigrants during the first one and a half years after the expansion of the European Union in 2004. We did not find any support for the “social tourism” hypothesis. In the new project we are able to study the immigrants in Sweden for a longer period and are also able to study more aspects of the take-up in the income transfer programs. We are also studying the employment rate and the wages of the new immigrants with new and better data. The project is supported by SIEPS. Participating researchers: Christer Gerdes and Eskil Wadensjö.

2008:7 Assimilation: Wages, Days in Employment and Work Income
Integration of immigrants is most often studied by comparing wages of immigrants to those of natives. Even if wages (per unit of time) are equalized one can still not argue that immigrants are integrated since they may be subject to higher unemployment. Therefore, total income of work, i.e. the product of wage and days in employment, is a better indication of the degree of integration. The purpose of this project is to explain for how long a time after immigration to Sweden immigrants’ work income lags behind native levels and to explain whether it is wages or employment that lags behind. This distinction is crucial for understanding why assimilation of immigrants takes time as well as for formulating policy interventions. Immigrants are separated into groups so as to capture the distinction between labor immigrants and non-labor immigrants (notably refugee immigrants). We separate immigrants by education and gender to see how assimilation times differ across groups. Preliminary results are available. Participating researcher: Per Lundborg.

2008:1 Marriage Migration to Sweden: The Determinants and Consequences for Labor Market Outcomes
The purpose of this project, which has receieved a grant from FAS, is to shed light on a number of issues related to marriage and labor integration among immigrants in Sweden. Previous studies, based on the US and Europe, show that endogamy - marriage within ones ethnic or national group - is common among first, second and even third generation immigrants. Individuals tend to marry persons similar to themselves along a number of dimensions including ethnicity, national origin, religion and education. This so-called assortative mating has potential implications for labor market integration as the characteristics of established residents can affect the immigrant spouses’ labor market outcomes. In Sweden, the highest proportion of immigration in the recent past, similar to other EU-countries, has consisted of migration due to family reunification. A large proportion of this form of migration is marriage migration, defined as either the immigration of individuals for the purpose of marrying/cohabitating with Swedish residents or spousal reunification. Very little is known about this source of migration. What characterizes these migrants? What characterizes Swedish residents that bring spouses from abroad? How do these factors interact to facilitate or hamper the labor market integration of marriage migrants? Effective integration policies crucially hinge on understanding the mechanisms behind this form of migration and the economic behavior of these migrants. Given the growing importance of marriage migration, remarkably few studies specifically address this issue. Participating researchers:Aycan Celikaksoy and Lena Nekby

2006:9 Wage Decentralisation and Immigrants’ Wages
Starting at a low level in the early 1980’s, Swedish wage formation has been decentralized at an increasing rate among white-collar workers’ unions. This process gained momentum in the mid-1990s and has been followed by rapid increases in the distribution of wages. Wage dispersion has increased both within and across individual worker categories and between white-collar workers and blue-collar workers. This process of wage decentralization implies that wages are determined to a larger extent by properties that are idiosyncratic to workers and to the firm or plant. In particular, when influence over wage setting at the industry level is restricted in favor of firms and local unions, workers’ wages may become more dispersed. The question analyzed in this project is if the process of wage decentralization has benefited the population of immigrant workers in Sweden or not. Decentralization may increase the scope for discrimination but may also cause wages to better reflect the productivity of the individual worker. To analyze the issue, we use linked worker-firm data for Sweden from 1995 and onwards. Participating researcher: Per Lundborg

2006:6 Immigration, Unemployment and Wages
Two much discussed questions are the effects, if any, of immigration on unemployment and on wages. Does immigration lead to greater unemployment? Most studies show small or no effects but there may be effects for some groups. A way to test the effects of immigrants and immigration on unemployment is to use observations on the municipal level. We have access to data for both Denmark and Sweden making such studies possible. Immigration means that the size of the labour force in the host country increases. Wages may change as a result, with larger effects for some occupations, educational groups and regions, due to the selectivity of immigration. There are two basic types of studies of the effects of immigration on wages. The first one is based on differences between the percentage of immigrants living in various regions or in different occupations, and the second one on the country as a single economic entity. We have data combining individual and regional observations making it possible to study those effects. Participating researchers: Eskil Wadensjö

2006:5 Immigration and the Public Sector
The redistribution between the generations takes place mainly in three ways: via the family, via the market and via the public sector. Redistribution via the public sector has come to be ever more important. Immigration can influence redistribution via the public sector. In most societies, immigrants are over-represented among those of active age. This implies that resources are transferred from them to the rest of society. On the other hand, in most European countries, employment and wages are lower among non-western immigrants than among natives, which would suggest a transfer to the immigrants. The matter of the direction in which resources are actually transferred is an empirical question, and the answer varies from country to country and within a given country over time. We have data for Denmark and Germany on the public net transfers. The data for Denmark are from a database that contains detailed information on incomes, taxes, transfers, public consumption, demographic variables and employment status for 1/30 of the population in Denmark 1995-2001. It is possible to get data of very high quality for Sweden by combining individual register data from Statistics Sweden with aggregate data for some components. Participating researchers: Christer Gerdes, Eskil Wadensjö

See also the following projects listed under "Completed Projects":

2008:4 Commuting and Migration Between the Nordic Countries

2008:8 Immigration to Sweden from the New EU member Countries

2010:4 Recruitment of foreign labor: Their work environment and labor market position in the Nordic countries