2011:7 Immigration and multiculturalism in Sweden and Canada
Canada and Sweden are often considered political outliers in their response to immigration and multiculturalism being more positive to immigration immigrants. Despite their obvious differences, both countries have reasonably open immigration policies and a multicultural approach to diversity. Moreover, both countries are often regarded as outliers on these issues among the countries with which they are normally compared. Sweden is an outlier in comparison with other Nordic countries and Europe more generally. Canada is an outlier in comparison with the United States, with which it otherwise shares so much in economic and cultural terms. This project has two purposes: 1) to demonstrate the similarities (and differences) between Sweden and Canada in terms of public attitudes towards immigration and diversity, and policies related to immigration and multiculturalism, and 2) to explain the similarities and differences that emerge. Participating researchers: Keith Banting, Queens University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada and Eskil Wadensjö.

2011:6 Foreign Background and Offending inStockholm,  Sweden
This dissertation focuses on various aspects of offending among immigrants in Sweden. The primary data comes from Stockholm. The first article considers the relationship between the home country factors of war and human development level on recorded violent offending in Stockholm, Sweden among young, immigrant males. The second article will considers first and second generation immigrants and how neighborhood factors influence their propensity to offend. The third article will consider how the age of immigration influences whether and when an immigrant will offend. Participating researcher: Amber Beckley

2011:1 Immigrants Well-Being and the Importance of access to Financial Markets
Studies on the economic situation of immigrants have been much concerned on the labour market and unequal treatment in hiring, promotion and wage setting. The financial market and its importance for the situation of the immigrants, on the other hand have met with much less interest. Wealth and access to the financial markets may, however, be important for the situation of immigrants in several ways. Since financial markets provide important tools for enhancing welfare -- tools to transfer resources across time and across states of the world, to make payments, to mitigate risk and to fund investments -- low rates of participation within the mainstream financial sector and relative more reliance on more expensive alternative credit by immigrants are associated with lower welfare.
One explanation for this negligence in research may be the lack of good registered data. This project aims to fill this lacuna by utilizing a data set including all register information on individuals from both the mainstream financial market and the pawn brokers’ association, supplemented by data from SCB. This will enable us to analyze financial market decisions and outcomes of immigrants relative to those of natives in both mainstream and alternative credit markets while controlling for individual characteristics. We will investigate among other things the following research questions: i; if there is discrimination in the consumer credit market against immigrants, ii; if borrowing from alternative creditors will relieve or exacerbate financial distress and iii; if financial distress is transferred from the parents to their children. In addition to documenting differences between (first and second generation) immigrants and natives, we will high light observed gender diversity. We will also link our results with the well being of immigrants in other markets like the housing and labour market. Participating researcher: Marieke Bos

2008:10 Xenophobia: Causes and Consequences
Recent years have witnessed a rise in right-wing extremism and in violence aimed at ethnic minorities and immigrants in many European countries. Unluckily, Sweden and Denmark are no exception to this development. The aim of this project is derive theoretical models and use quantitative statistical methods to study the consequences of the discrimination of immigrants and the causes of voting for anti-immigration parties and violence against immigrants in these countries. We approximate the discrimination of immigrants by using survey evidence on attitudes towards immigrants. Even though we recognize that not every native with negative attitudes may discriminate, we think that negative attitudes are systematically related to discrimination. We are able to identify the effect of attitudes by exploiting the natural experiment provided by refugee settlement policies. A bad labour market may cause both low wages for recent immigrants and negative attitudes among natives. This is not the effect we want to capture, therefore we use a measure of attitudes displayed more than ten years before the period in our analysis and we include immigrants from developed countries as a placebo group.Previous studies have identified racist culture and bad economic conditions as important factors for the success of extreme right parties and right wing criminal activities. However, these theories are somewhat simplistic. There is evidence against the notion that some Swedish areas are inherently more xenophobic than others. The anti-immigrant sentiment has been strongly on the rise in Denmark despite its good economic performance. These puzzles suggest the need for serious analysis. We plan to exploit the variation across municipalities and in time to see which factors lie behind the rise in right-wing parties and ethnic violence in Sweden. Understanding the causes of hate towards immigrant groups is indispensable for the design of policy aimed at reducing hate crimes and racism. Participating researcher: Gisela Waisman


2008:5 Do Mohammed and Sabina have Lower Employment Chances than Sven and Kerstin?
This project is comprised of two field experiments, using the so called "correspondence testing" methodology to study the existence and prevalence of ethnic discrimination in the Swedish labor market. In the first experiment, two fictive but observationally equivalent resumés (CVs) were sent to advertised job openings, one with an Arabic sounding name, the other with a typical Swedish name. In total 4000 applications were sent to job openings within 15 occupations. Employer responses, call-backs, are then measured and compared. Results from the first field experiment indicate that a applicant with an Arabic name must apply to almost twice as many jobs in order to get a call-back than an applicant with a Swedish name. These results imply that employers have negative priors about the unobserved characteristics of persons with Arabic names. In the second field experiment, the strength of these priors are investigated by enhancing the CV with an Arabic name by, on average, two more years of relevant work experience. Results indicate that differences in call-backs disappear for women but remain strong and significant for men. Participating researchers: Mahmood Arai, Moa Bursell, Carl le Grand, Lena Nekby.

2008:2 Encounter Between Police and Youth: Importance of Ethnicity, Social Class and Gender
International research has shown that some groups are discriminated against in the justice system, especially young males from ethnic minorities, and that the police are inclined to be more suspicious towards these groups. It is also well known that the initial attitude a person displays towards the police might have an impact on how extensive the police interventions will be towards that person. This study focuses on the encounters between the police and youths, and the interactions between them. The objective is to examine how different patterns of interactions influence the interventions from the police towards the youths. The analysis of the interactions departs from Goffman’s ideas of interactions in every day life. Both the youths and the police can have different definitions of the situation when they interact, and the definitions of the situation can influence the interaction between them. Central questions to answer are the importance of ethnicity, social class and gender for the interactions and how these factors influence interventions from the police on a more general level. This study is an open ethnographic field study where the police are followed closely. The field research is conducted in two different police districts. The demography of the populations in the districts differs in both ethnic structure and social background, which enables observations of interactions between police and youths from different ethnic and social background.
Participating researcher: Tove Pettersson

2007:3 Experiences of Name Changes among Immigrants in Sweden
Arai and Thoursie (2006) compare the development of earnings for a group of immigrants that change their surnames to Swedish-sounding or neutral names with immigrants, from the same region of birth, who retain their surnames. Results indicate that while earnings are similar before name change, a substantial earnings gap is observed after name change in favor of those that changed names. This gap can be due to (expected) discriminatory behavior against certain foreign names in the Swedish labor market. The aim of this project is to identify the motives, expectations and experiences of individuals who have abandoned their foreign surnames during the 1990s through extensive interviews on a small number of name changers. Examining the mechanisms leading to name change is essential for understanding the process of integration in Swedish society. Participating researchers:Mahmood Arai and Shahram Khosravi, Department of Social Antropology, Stockholm University

2007:2 Discrimination Based on Names, Appearance or Language
The purpose of this project is to see to what degree observable attributes such as surnames, appearance and language lead to ethnic discrimination. A number of experiments will be conducted in order to study the both the direct effects and the interaction of these variables in mitigating or enhancing ethnic discrimination, for example the effect of an Arabic name with a perfect Swedish accent compared to an Arabic name with an Arabic accent. A number of studies have documented that ethnic labor market gaps exist in the Swedish labor market. Despite controls for age, education, duration of residence and a number of other observable factors that can affect labor market outcomes, it is unclear to what degree discrimination or unobservable productivity differences account for these gaps. Experiments are an interesting alternative to standard empirical methods for testing the presence of ethnic discrimination. To date, these experiments have focused primarily on the effect of a foreign name via the Correspondence testing methodology. To what degree other observable attributes such as appearance and dialects affect the level and extent of discrimination has not previously been tested. Participating researchers: Mahmood Arai, Lena Nekby, Magnus Rödin, Gülay Özcan.

2007:1 Home Language Usage, Identity and Educational Attainment
This study aims to examine the interrelationship between home language usage, identity and education for individuals with immigrant backgrounds in Sweden. Ethnic identity and home language use are likely to be highly correlated and both have potential implications on educational outcomes. However, the effect of identity and home language on education may be separable and may depend on type of education measured, for example grades, years of schooling or field of education. In addition, the effects may vary depending on type of home language use (spoken, written, read) and type of identity (ethnic minority, national majority). This study uses survey data from 1995 on a cohort of students that graduated from compulsory school in 1988, matched to register data from 1995-2002 to study these questions. Participating researchers: Lena Nekby, Magnus Rödin and Gülay Özcan.

2006:2 Temporary Agency Work and Self-Employment.
It is a well-known fact that employment rates are lower among refugee immigrants than among natives in Sweden. During recent years research has also shown that this group of immigrants is over-represented in alternative forms of employment such as temporary agency work and self-employment. An important question is if it is discrimination on the regular labour market that causes this overrepresentation. Also the effect of these forms of employment for immigrants on for example income, future employment probabilities and success on the labour market is currently not well documented. Another part of the project studies the effects of an increase in the self-employment rate of immigrants on unemployment in this group. The data sets for these studies consist of a panel of all individuals who at some point between 1998 and 2002 have been self-employed and/or have had temporary agency work. This data set is unique and specially designed for the purpose of studying these two groups. Participating researchers: Pernilla Andersson Joona and Eskil Wadensjö

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

2006:1 Equal Opportunities for Equal Education