11 The Farther They Come, the Harder They Fall? First- and Second-Generation Immigrants in the Swedish Labour Market JAN O. JONSSON 1 Summary. Sweden has been an immigrant country since the Second World War, with a mix of labour (especially from neighbouring Nordic countries) and refugee immigration up to the early 1970s and a large inflow of refugees, especially from the Middle East, after that. In 2002 almost 13% of the Swedish population was born in another country, summing up to more than one million inhabitants out of a total nine million. Labour immigrants arriving before 1970 used to have a labour-market achievement on a par with native Swedes but in recent decades the first-generation immigrants, particularly those of non-european origin, have had relatively poor success in the labour market. This is counterbalanced by two facts: first, immigrants labour-market attainment improves with years of residence in Sweden; second, there is considerable assimilation across generations. Sons and daughters of immigrants (born in Sweden, or who immigrated before starting school) do almost as well in the labour market as those with two Swedish-born parents. The remaining worry for this group is their relatively low employment rates. After controlling 1 Financial support from the Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research (FAS Dnr 2881/2001 and 2893/2002) is gratefully acknowledged. I have benefited from comments on a previous draft by the editor, other colleagues in the project, and from Lena Schröder. An additional thanks to Robert Erikson. Proceedings of the British Academy 137, 451 505. The British Academy 2007.
452 Jan O. Jonsson statistically for resources in the family of origin there is a gradient in the disadvantages faced by second-generation immigrants suggesting that the more visible the ethnic origin, the lower the probability of being employed (culminating with those of non-european origin). This result is not direct evidence of employer discrimination which in this case should be limited to labour market entrance but is certainly in line with such an interpretation. Introduction OVER THE LAST FEW DECADES, the issue of the labour market success of immigrants has aroused a great deal of interest. In Sweden, as in many European countries, this is partly due to the rapid growth of the immigrant population as well as their relatively poor labour-market attainment. Immigrants disadvantage in the labour market is well documented, but is a rather recent phenomenon. Much in the same way as the American seminal contributions by Chiswick (1982) and Carliner (1980), early Swedish studies (Wadensjö 1973; Ohlsson 1975) found that immigrants wages after a while in the new country reached the level of natives, and their labour-market participation was even higher than the Swedes. And just as Borjas (e.g., 1985; 1995) found that more recent immigrants in the US did not have the qualifications and other resources to repeat the labour-market achievements of earlier immigrant cohorts, Swedish studies have shown immigrants employment probabilities (Ekberg and Andersson 1995; Ekberg 1999; Bevelander and Nielsen 2001) and wage levels (Aguilar and Gustafsson 1991; 1994) declining over time relative to native Swedes. This unfortunate development, however, although running parallel with increased immigration from non- European countries, is not so easily interpreted in terms of a change towards less-skilled workers as will be shown below, several of the most recently arrived immigrant groups are characterised by relatively high levels of formal qualifications. The situation today in Sweden (as in many other Western countries) is that of diversity in the immigrant population. While some groups are very similar to native Swedes, others face disadvantages in the labour market, even after taking account of differences in educational qualifications, labour-market experience, family situation, place of residence and age (e.g., Rooth 1999; Bevelander and Nielsen 2001; Arai and Vilhelmsson
IMMIGRANTS IN THE SWEDISH LABOUR MARKET 453 2002; Integrationsverket 2004 (employment opportunities), and le Grand and Szulkin 2002 (wage levels)). Interestingly, there appears to be a steady increase in such ethnic penalties relative to the home country s distance from Sweden, and the worst off are systematically those of non-european origin largely immigrants from Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, and South America. There may be various sources of ethnic penalties for first generation immigrants, such as low portability of human capital (or, as is the case for language for most immigrants to Sweden, no transferability at all), outright or statistical discrimination, and lack of social networks. However, sons and daughters of immigrants, especially if they were born in Sweden or arrived at a young age, are arguably in a much better position when it comes to resources such as language skills, educational qualifications, and networks. Through studying these second-generation immigrants we thus approach the question of whether there is employer discrimination on the grounds of ethnic origin in the Swedish labour market (though isolating discrimination effects is of course almost impossible). Studies of the second-generation are much rarer than those of first-generation immigrants as it is more difficult to find adequate data. The few Swedish studies that have been carried out suggest that unemployment risks for those born before 1970 were on par with those of natives with Swedishborn parents (Ekberg 1997) while those born later and whose parents come from non-nordic European and non-european countries have greater difficulties of getting a job after leaving school (Vilhelmsson 2002). Similar results for unemployment were obtained for secondgeneration immigrants from Southern Europe and non-european countries in a more recent analysis of data from 1998 by Rooth and Ekberg (2003), who also found much the same pattern for wage levels amongst the employed. Following on from this research, this chapter aims to study the firstand second-generation immigrants in the Swedish labour market in 1990. In addition to analysing employment, this chapter will provide analyses of occupational attainment amongst the employed, contributing to prior Swedish studies on ethnic penalties. The data set used in this chapter is based on the 1990 Census and matched register data, and consists of nearly 2.9 million people born between 1941 and 1964, thus allowing the most common countries of origin to be distinguished. This improves on previous Swedish studies in that more descriptive detail can be achieved. Also, it is possible to address, albeit indirectly, the question of labourmarket discrimination due to visible minority status. In addition, the
454 Jan O. Jonsson analysis of this chapter will show that the pessimistic view of the labour market attainment of second-generation immigrants partly depends on the fact that previous studies have not taken their social background into account. Sweden as an immigration country Like many European countries, for a long time Sweden had net emigration from the mid-nineteenth century up to the second decade of the twentieth century nearly one million people, out of an initial three and a half million, moved to North America. However, by the 1930s emigration had virtually ceased and for the first time the country experienced a small immigration surplus; it was from the 1940s though that Sweden really became an immigrant society. The first big immigration wave, of, in particular, German and Baltic refugees, as well as immigrants from other Nordic countries, came after the Second World War, followed by people escaping oppression during the turmoil in Eastern Europe, notably from Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968, and Poland from the late 1960s. A free Nordic labour market was introduced in 1954 and in the 1960s labour immigration became of numerical importance, with immigrants arriving primarily from Finland, the other Nordic countries and the Mediterranean (especially Yugoslavia). 2 This was to a large extent an active labour market policy that had begun after the Second World War, but by the 1960s had intensified: Sweden s expanding industry and service sector needed people, and those who arrived were mostly workers with relatively low educational qualifications. The Swedish policy was also to avoid a guest worker system in favour of family immigration, resulting in a fairly even gender distribution within the immigrant population (see Table 11.3 below). Labour immigration from non-nordic countries was beginning to face limitations in 1967 when the government (influenced by demands from the trade unions) re-interpreted the Asylum Act of 1954 and introduced a requirement for jobs and residence before arrival. The economic recession following the oil crisis in 1973 effectively put an end to largescale non-nordic labour immigration, but immigration proceeded with a 2 It should be noted that immigration from Finland had been noticeable since the sixteenth century. Immigration from Germany, Scotland, and Belgium also had historically been important, although not significant numerically.
IMMIGRANTS IN THE SWEDISH LABOUR MARKET 455 new wave of refugees, this time coming from various non-european countries. 3 War and persecution, especially in the Middle East and in Latin America, led to an immigration of around 100,000 people. 4 Family reunion ( tied ) immigration further boosted the number of immigrants from countries already represented in Sweden. In 2002, close relatives constituted 56% of the non-nordic immigrants, refugees 24%, and labour immigrants 14%; the remainder were guest students (4.5%) and adopted children (2.3%) (Statistics Sweden 2004, table 97). 5 Table 11.1 summarises Sweden s recent immigrant history. The proportion of people born in another country increased from 4% to almost 8% between 1960 and 1980, and in 2002 a good one million people out of almost nine million inhabitants were born in another country, i.e., nearly 12% (a figure of similar magnitude to the US, for example). These figures are much lower for the older part of the population, however, which can be seen indirectly from the figures from 1960 in Table 11.1. What is also worth noting in Table 11.1 is that the proportion of foreign citizens has not increased to the same extent as the immigration. From the 1970s onwards, this proportion is rather stable at around 5% to 6%. This is because Sweden (unlike, say, Germany) has had a liberal policy for immigrants becoming Swedish citizens. 6 Immigrant countries and regions, 1970 2002 The numerical importance of different origin countries and regions in particular years is reflected in Table 11.2. In 2002, Finland is still the 3 Sweden had a liberal interpretation of the 1954 Geneva Convention, with permanent residence given for humanitarian reasons and not only for traditional political refugees. These practices were later included in the Aliens Act of 1989, when permanent visas were also given to those who had applied before 1988. 4 Apart from these parts of the world, Sweden also received around 7,000 refugees from Eritrea and 6,000 from Vietnam/China. On the whole, however, immigrants in Sweden predominantly come from the Nordic countries, Eastern and South-eastern Europe, the Middle East and South America. 5 Thus there remains some labour immigration to Sweden, mostly because of the EEA agreement (Sweden joined the EU in 1995). In addition, a good 10,000 immigrants in 2002 came from the other Nordic countries. As the greatest share of these no doubt came for labour-market reasons (though there will be relatives in this group too), it is possible that labour immigrants made up almost one-third of the total immigrant population in 2002. 6 The demands during most of the period covered in this paper have been that the applicant had been living in Sweden for five years (two years for Nordic citizens), were at least 18 years of age, and had no criminal record. If they fulfilled these demands both the applicant and their children under 18, if any, could become Swedish citizens.
456 Jan O. Jonsson Table 11.1. Selected statistics on immigration to Sweden (1960 2002). 1960 1970 1980 1990 2002 Population size (on 31 December) 7,497,967 8,081,229 8,317,937 8,590,630 8,940,788 Number of non-swedish citizens 190,621 411,280 421,667 483,704 474,099 Percentage of non-swedish citizens 2.5 5.1 5.1 5.6 5.3 Number not born in Sweden 299,879 537,585 626,953 790,445 1,053,463 Percentage not born in Sweden 4.0 6.7 7.5 9.2 11.8 Number of immigrants a 26,143 77,326 39,426 60,048 64,087 Immigration surplus a 11,005 48,673 9,587 34,852 31,078 Source: Statistics Sweden. a These figures refer to the number of immigrants and the number of immigrants minus the number of emigrants during the year in question. most important immigration country more than one-fifth of the immigrant population is of Finnish origin although their proportion has decreased substantially since 1970 (from almost 44% to 18%). Norway and Denmark are also common origins, due to the geographical proximity as well as the long-standing free Nordic labour market. The change in relative size of the Nordic immigrants as a whole is quite dramatic from 60% to 26% of the immigrants over forty years. The Other European immigrants have maintained their relative share, mostly through a rising influx of immigrants from Poland and a sudden increase in the (already large) group from Yugoslavia. This increase is largely explained by Bosnians and ex-yugoslavians coming for humanitarian reasons during the war in 1994 alone amounting to 40,000. Immigrants from (the former) Yugoslavia are hence a mix of an earlier labour immigration with a large inflow of refugees arriving in the 1990s. The labour-market success of the latter, and particularly the younger immigrants, will of course be very difficult to assess until well into the present decade partly because many of those from the former Yugoslavia may not obtain permanent residency in Sweden if the political situation in their home countries improves (which is the case, for example, for Bosnians). It should be noted that as the data used in this chapter come from 1990, this latest wave of immigrants will not be included in the analyses below. Table 11.2 also clearly shows the dramatic increase in the proportion of Asian immigrants, from 2% of the immigrant population in 1970 to almost 27% in 2002. Four Asian countries alone Iraq, Iran, Turkey, and Lebanon account for 16% of the immigrants residing in Sweden in 2002. It is evident that the immigrant population in Sweden has become not only much more Asian in character, but also much more diverse the
IMMIGRANTS IN THE SWEDISH LABOUR MARKET 457 Table 11.2. Relative size of immigrant populations, by country/region of birth (1970 2002) (column percentages). Country of birth 1970 1980 1990 2002 Finland 43.8 40.1 27.5 18.2 Yugoslavia/Bosnia/Croatia 6.3 6.1 5.5 12.6 Iraq 0.2 1.2 6.0 Iran 0.1 0.5 5.1 5.0 Norway 8.3 6.8 6.7 4.2 Poland 2.0 3.2 4.5 3.9 Denmark 7.3 6.9 5.6 3.8 Germany 7.8 6.2 4.6 3.7 Turkey 0.7 2.3 3.2 3.1 Chile 0.0 1.3 3.5 2.6 Lebanon 0.0 0.3 2.0 1.9 Great Britain 1.0 1.3 1.4 1.5 U.S.A. 2.4 1.9 1.6 1.4 Hungary 2.0 2.1 1.9 1.3 Greece 2.2 2.4 1.7 1.0 Total from countries above 83.9 81.7 76.1 70.4 From other countries 16.1 18.3 23.9 29.6 By region Nordic 59.7 54.4 40.4 26.5 Europe, other 32.8 30.5 27.9 32.6 Africa 0.8 1.6 3.5 5.6 North America 2.9 2.3 2.4 2.4 South America 0.4 2.7 5.6 5.1 Asia 1.8 7.2 19.0 26.7 Soviet Union 1.3 1.1 0.9 0.7 Oceania 0.1 0.2 0.2 0.3 Total percentage 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 Total number 537,585 626,953 790,445 1,053,463 Source: Statistics Sweden. Note: Before 2002, Yugoslavia was reported as one country. In the 2002 figures, Moldavia and Slovenia are not included (only a small fraction of immigrants come from these countries). The figure for Iraq in 1980 is estimated from the figure in 1982. fifteen countries listed account for only around 70% of the immigrant group, as compared to 84% in 1970. Immigration to Sweden: An international perspective Comparative statistics indicate that immigrant populations as well as immigration (or integration) policies differ significantly among countries (OECD 2003; Integrationsverket 2004). In particular, characteristic of
458 Jan O. Jonsson Sweden s immigrant population are the large share of Nordic immigrants and the concentration of non-european immigrants coming from the Middle East; however, with substantial proportions of immigrants also coming from Eastern and Southern Europe, Africa, and from Latin America, perhaps the diversity amongst the sending countries is the most striking feature of Sweden s immigrant population. Additionally, Sweden hosts a comparatively large refugee population. Since the 1970s, Sweden has not (unlike many other countries) pursued quota immigration based on skills, education or other labour market-relevant assets. Only a very small proportion probably around 10% of immigrants comes from the same language area, not only because this area is small but also because Sweden has no (recent) colonial tradition. 7 Finally, overall Sweden has a relatively large proportion of its population born in a foreign country a slightly larger proportion than in the US and about the same size as in Belgium, France, the Netherlands, and Austria. It is not surprising, given the characteristics of immigration to Sweden, that recent unemployment rates show the relative disadvantage of the immigrant group (as compared to native-born) to be among the highest in the OECD countries, together with precisely the four aforementioned countries (OECD 2004). Previous studies on immigrants in the Swedish labour market Although in the 1950s and 1960s many immigrants to Sweden undoubtedly faced problems in the labour market, for a long time such problems were relatively uncommon in the 1970s the labour-force participation of immigrants was in fact higher than that of Swedes, particularly amongst women (Wadensjö 1973). From the 1970s and onwards, when immigration from non-european countries started to increase and when the long-booming economy started to behave more erratically immigrants difficulties in the labour market increased. Ekberg (1999, 7 The small proportion of immigrants who come from the same language area is in sharp contrast to countries such as Australia, United Kingdom, France and Portugal, where this proportion is 65% or higher, but rather similar to the other Nordic countries, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands (OECD 2003).
IMMIGRANTS IN THE SWEDISH LABOUR MARKET 459 table A.3) estimates that in 1960 the labour-force participation of immigrant men was the same as for native-born Swedes, but that by the end of the 1970s it had declined to 95% of the latter s, and by 1991 stood at 84%; the corresponding figures for women were 10% plus in 1960, a similar level by the end of the 1970s, and 83% in 1991. These unfavourable figures must be seen against a backdrop of almost full employment during the 1980s, by the end of which there were, in practice, labour shortages in most sectors of the economy. Things would get worse and much worse. When a sudden and exceptionally deep recession hit the Swedish economy in the period from 1991 to 1993, with a loss of around 550,000 jobs out of an initial 4.5 million (Statistics Sweden 2004, fig. 297), immigrants suffered most. Those who were employed lost their jobs to a higher degree than native Swedes, even controlling for human capital, establishment characteristics, and wage rate (Arai and Vilhelmsson 2002). Furthermore, the continuing flow of immigrants, especially those connected to the civil war in Yugoslavia, had very small chances of gaining a foothold in the labour market. By 1996, the employment rate among immigrants had fallen to below 75% that of native-born Swedes (Ekberg 1999), for whom the unemployment rate was still extremely high. Since the end of the 1990s the Swedish economy has improved, but the labour-market situation for immigrants remains precarious. The Swedish Integration Board (Integrationsverket 2004) has recently presented figures showing that the average employment rate of foreign-born in 2003 was 60%, compared with 76% for those born in Sweden (in 1990, the corresponding figures were 74% and 84%, respectively) indicating that the relations between immigrants and Swedish-born at any rate had increased to 80% during the latter half of the 1990s (ibid., fig. 2). This average figure conceals the fact that among those who arrived during the 1990s, and especially from Asia and Africa, employment rates were as low as 17% to 45% in 2003 (ibid., figs. 8 9). The story for wage differences is fairly similar to that for employment. Whereas early waves of immigrants reached salaries on a par with native Swedes (Wadensjö 1973), this has not been the fortune of more recent immigrants, especially, though not exclusively, those from non-european countries (Aguilar and Gustafsson 1994). Between 1992 and 1995, when unemployment was very high suggesting a strong positive selection effect on immigrant employment wage levels for non-european immigrants were 14% lower for men and 7% lower for women as compared to
460 Jan O. Jonsson native-born Swedes with the same level of qualification (le Grand and Szulkin 2002, table 4). 8 Why, then, are immigrants disadvantaged in the Swedish labour market? There are more theories than evidence on this issue. A common observation is that immigrants qualifications are not immediately transferable to the Swedish labour market, either because they are not adequate (such as language and other country-specific human capital), or because employers do not know or trust them. An issue of some relevance in an international perspective is that the Swedish language takes quite a while to learn and very few immigrants almost exclusively those from Norway and Denmark, and, to a much lesser extent, from Iceland and Finland have even a rudimentary knowledge of it upon arrival. 9 This issue has led to a Swedish policy making language courses for newly arrived refugees (in practice) mandatory, something that in turn has delayed their entry into the labour market. Another theory accounting for this disadvantage is, of course, discrimination. With the increasing problems of the non-native population during the 1980s and onwards, immigrants opportunities have become a political issue of growing importance. In the governmental bill on integration policy in 1998, equal rights and opportunities of everyone, irrespective of ethnic and cultural background were included as one of three aims (Proposition 1997/98: 16). An Ombudsman protecting the rights of those who were subject to ethnic discrimination was installed in 1986 and a new law against discrimination in the labour market that put the burden of proof on employers was passed in 1999 (Proposition 1997/98: 177). A common view is that these actions so far have had limited effect; there seems, for example, to be little chance of succeeding in a legal case against an employer who is accused of discrimination, and, contrary to what is the case, for example, in the US, penalties for violating discrimination laws are not severe. 8 Controls were made for years of schooling, years of potential experience, and years of seniority. The estimates reported here concern employees with 11 20 years of residence. 9 The case of Finland is complicated. Finnish is not even an Indo-European language (belonging to the same group as Estonian and Hungarian) and as such is very different from Swedish. On the other hand, given the historical relations between the two countries, for a long time Finns have had obligatory education in Swedish in school. Around 6% also belong to a Swedish minority in Finland (Finlandssvenskar), which was over-represented among post-1970 immigrants (Wadensjö 1973). Furthermore, in the remote north-eastern part of Sweden (Tornedalen), a particular type of Finnish is spoken.
IMMIGRANTS IN THE SWEDISH LABOUR MARKET 461 Another explanation for immigrant disadvantage is that the Swedish labour market, with high minimum wages and strong employment security, provides an effective barrier against outsiders aiming to gain footing in the labour market (Lindbeck and Snower 1988). One long-term change in the labour market has also been, partly because of the compressed wage structure, that unqualified labour has declined while white-collar work in the service sector normally requiring clearly defined professional qualifications and more often involving communicative skills has grown. While in the mid-1970s more than 40% of those employed in the age range 25 64 were in unskilled (either manual or non-manual) jobs, this was the case for only 32% in 1990 and only 25% in 1999 (Jonsson 2004, fig. 9.1). 10 Entry into the labour market at low levels has thus become more complicated for immigrants who lack Swedish-specific skills. While it is fairly easy to find plausible explanations for first-generation immigrant disadvantage in the labour market without assuming discrimination, it is more difficult to explain why second-generation immigrants i.e., children to immigrants who were born and/or went to school in Sweden still face disadvantages. Le Grand and Szulkin (2002) studied the wage level in 1995 of Swedish- and foreign-born who finished their upper secondary education in Sweden, controlling for human capital variables as well as average school grades. They found a remaining wage difference of 4% for men and 3.5% for women. Vilhelmsson (2002), in his study of unemployment in the Swedish youth labour market, found an excessive risk of being unemployed, out of the labour force, and in a labour market training programme for non-european immigrants in 1995, also controlling for grades in Swedish, human capital variables, parental education, place of residence, and time of immigration. 11 Rooth and Ekberg (2003) report even greater disadvantages for non-european 10 The unskilled jobs are defined as those in which less than two years of schooling in addition to the compulsory nine years are necessary. During the same period, 1976 to 1999, the salariat (containing higher and medium level managers and administrators, as well as professionals and semi-professionals) has grown from 23% to 38%. In most jobs in these social classes, formal merits are needed, and foreign qualifications may be difficult to translate into merits that will have a value in the Swedish labour market. 11 Relative risks are around three for labour-market programmes and out of the labour force, and around two for unemployment (relative to working in the regular labour market). Non-Nordic European immigrants (dominated by Yugoslavs) also have an excessive risk for unemployment (log-odds 1.7) and for being out of the labour force (log-odds 3.6). It should be mentioned that both the non-european immigrant groups also have higher odds of being in education (1.9). (All ratios compared with the reference category of Swedish-born with two Swedish-born parents.)
462 Jan O. Jonsson second-generation immigrants aged 20 to 45 in 1998, both concerning unemployment and wage level, controlling for human capital variables (although not for ability). 12 These studies all suggest that there may be employer discrimination, though few studies take parental resources into account (a notable exception being Vilhelmsson 2002) it remains a viable hypothesis, at the heart of the sociological tradition, that differences in social, economic, and cultural resources in the family of origin may explain some of the disadvantages faced by second generation immigrants. Data sources The data used in this chapter come mainly from register information on country of birth, immigration age, and education, which has been linked with census data on occupation, income, and social class. By using the censuses it is possible to match parents and children to each other through a unique personal identifier and thus obtain information about social and ethnic origin; these matchings are entirely accurate and nonmatched cases very few. The links are based on household connections in the census of 1960 and 1970 13 while the outcome variables mainly occupational information have been taken from the 1990 Census. As this linking demands that the respondent lives in the same household as the parent at least in 1960, it is unwise to include those born earlier than 1941 in the sample as a non-negligible fraction of them will have moved out at ages 19 and above. The data set also does not include people born later than 1964, so the analyses cover men and women aged (in 1990) 26 to 49. For the purpose at hand this is reasonable because social-class mobility is very low in Sweden after the age of 30 40 and because a noticeable proportion of those younger than 26 will still be in education. An important advantage is that the data set consists of all Swedish residents in 1990 12 They also find that second-generation immigrants from Southern Europe are disadvantaged in terms of unemployment risks and men s wage levels. Because of differences in samples and model specifications, it is not possible to conclude that the disadvantages of second-generation immigrants have become worse between 1995 and 1998. 13 For respondents immigrating later, we have information on their country of birth via registers, but for those who were born in Sweden there is no way of determining their second-generation immigrant status except having access to the corresponding information for the parents. In Sweden there is no direct question about country of origin or ethnicity in the Censuses that could be used for this purpose.
IMMIGRANTS IN THE SWEDISH LABOUR MARKET 463 born between 1941 and 1964, meaning that after taking a small proportion of missing values into account there are about 2.9 million people in the data set. This allows for quite a detailed account of ethnic origins and leads to precise estimates for many immigrant groups. The common problem in surveys of a high non-response rate within immigrant groups is also avoided. Through the connection between parents and children, it is also possible to identify both first- and secondgeneration immigrants in the same analysis (though few of the latter will of course be children to the former, given the rather narrow age differences). Variables, definitions and the composition of the ethnic origin groups What will be termed ethnic groups or ethnic origins are in Swedish registry data defined as the country of birth. To define pure ethnic groups one would need to have additional information, primarily on language, life-style, religion, and skin colour (and information about the latter two characteristics would be considered ethically problematic to collect). This means that we cannot identify ethnic minorities within Sweden, such as indigenous groups. 14 Furthermore, we cannot distinguish different ethnic groups among immigrants. 15 The information on country of birth, along 14 According to the EU convention on protecting national minorities, that Sweden ratified in 2000, there are five ethnic minorities and minority languages in Sweden (see Proposition 1998/99: 143): Finns (Sverigefinnar; their language is Finnish), Finns from Tornedalen (Tornedalingar; Meänkieli), Sami (Samer; Lappish), Romanies (Romer; Romany Chib), and Jews (Judar; Jiddisch), of which the three former are territorial minorities. The Finns are included in this study as immigrants while the other groups cannot be discerned. The minority that comes closest to an indigenous group is the Sami of which there are around 20,000 in Sweden at the beginning of the twenty-first century. 15 A case in point is the Turks in Sweden. About 1990, when our data begin, there were around 20,000 Turks living in Sweden, but only approximately 8,000 of them were ethnic Turks (mostly Kuluturks). Around 9,000 were Assyrians (belonging to the Syrian-Orthodox Church) and 3,000 Kurds. All of these groups are identified in the data as Turks but this conceals important ethnic divisions within this group. Another indication of the lack of precision in the measure of national origin is that it is assumed that around 8,000 people living in Sweden by the end of the 1980s were Kurds, the additional 5,000 coming from neighbouring countries such as Iran and Iraq (estimates from Sveriges Nationalatlas 1991). On the other hand, there is hardly any theoretical reason to expect differences between these ethnic groups.
464 Jan O. Jonsson with year of immigration (available from 1968 and onwards) 16 as well as the year of Swedish citizenship, is regularly included in official records, meaning that these data are administrative and not based on survey questions. A distinction which follows the one commonly made in the literature is between first - and second -generation immigrants (where the latter group more properly could be called second-generation Swedes ). Firstgeneration immigrants are defined as those who immigrated after the start of primary school, which takes place at age seven in Sweden. 17 Second-generation immigrants are those who either were born in Sweden or moved there before the age of eight, and whose parents were both born in another country. 18 There is a theoretical reason for this distinction: the important dimension in socialisation should be to have access to Swedish-specific resources and characteristics, and it is most likely sufficient to have one parent who is Swedish-born for having Swedish spoken at home, acquaintance with the Swedish school system and labour market, and for knowing the way around in Swedish society. 19 There is also a pragmatic reason, namely that the big divide in educational and labour-market attainment is between those who have no Swedish-born parent and those who have one (Similä 1994; Lundh et al. 2002). In the analyses of second-generation immigrants, the contrast is with Swedish-born with no foreign-born parent (i.e., who have either two Swedish-born parents, or, in the case of single parents, the custodial parent is of Swedish origin). This reference group is referred to as those with Swedish ancestry. As a special category I distinguish those with mixed Swedish-foreign ancestry (i.e., those who have two parents of which one was born in Sweden and the other in some other country). 20 16 The information concerns the most recent year of immigration, in case the person has immigrated more than once. Unfortunately, there is no way in the data to take multiple immigration histories into account. 17 This chapter defines the age as eight because children start school in the autumn of the year they have their seventh birthday. 18 If the respondent lived with a single parent in the year in which the household connection was done (mostly in 1960), we have no information on the other ( absent ) parent. These cases (4.6% of the total number) are assigned the country of origin of the custodial parent. 19 Classifying someone with a native-born parent as a second-generation immigrant seems often to stem from an assumption that a foreign-born parent is like some sort of disease that may contaminate the child. Alternatively, having one foreign-born parent may lead to visible minority status, though this is true for small proportions of immigrants to Sweden. 20 The Swedish-born parent in the category of mixed Swedish-foreign ancestry may still have foreign-born parents. In some cases there is mixed ancestry among immigrants because the
IMMIGRANTS IN THE SWEDISH LABOUR MARKET 465 Table 11.3 shows the ethnic groups that were distinguished in the data for the bulk of the analyses, where 1 is used to indicate the first generation and 2 the second. It should be noted that the categorisation of countries is, like most groupings in previous research, not theoretically founded; thus, it aims more at descriptive detail than explanation. With that in mind, most country groupings are straightforward, but some classification decisions have been made. Those (few) from Iceland have been coded with the Norwegian and Danish immigrants; the category Western includes Great Britain (the biggest group), Ireland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, Switzerland, Austria, Canada, the US, Australia, and New Zealand; Southern Europe comprises Portugal, Spain, and Italy. Asian immigrants in Sweden are dominated by those from the Middle East. Immigrants from Latin America mostly come from Chile (a country of origin that is distinguished for first- but not secondgeneration immigrants). In further analyses of first-generation immigrants, I will use a more detailed classification, particularly for the African and Asian category (described in connection to Table 11.10, where numbers for these sub-categories also can be found). Immigrants in Sweden have disincentives to work immediately upon arrival because they receive special arrival-support that is intended to take them through the first transitory period, especially involving language courses. Furthermore, asylum seekers could not, during most of the time period under study, get a work permit during the first year. Because of this, and the fact that newly arrived immigrants already faced great structural barriers (such as language problems) in getting a job, I have excluded those who immigrated to Sweden in 1989 and 1990 in all analyses. As can be seen from Table 11.3, some ethnic groups among secondgeneration immigrants are too small to be discerned these cases are later excluded from the analyses in order to keep the other categories as comparable as possible. It may seem surprising to find such a discrepancy between the number of first- and second-generation immigrants, but it is likely because the youngest cohort included here were born in 1964 (and started school in 1971), before which immigration to Sweden was still limited. More recent data would have yielded more second-generation mother and the father come from different, foreign countries. In these, rather few, mixed cases we let the father s country of origin determine the classification. This is reasonable because the household class position will most often be derived from the father who in general has the strongest connection to the labour market and more often the dominant class position.
466 Jan O. Jonsson Table 11.3. Relative size of ethnic origin groups in 1990, by generation and gender. Men Women N % of Total % of N % of Total % of Population Immigrant Population Immigrant Population Population Swedish 1,181,350 81.9 1,126,988 81.6 Mixed (Swedish & Other) 48,074 3.3 45,241 3.3 Finnish 1 46,199 3.2 21.6 58,176 4.2 27.9 Finnish 2 17,527 1.2 8.2 16,870 1.2 8.1 Norwegian/Danish 1 12,786 0.9 6.0 14,752 1.1 7.1 Norwegian/Danish 2 14,611 1.0 6.8 13,671 1.0 6.6 Western 1 10,281 0.7 4.8 7,049 0.5 3.4 Western 2 5,295 0.4 2.5 5,037 0.4 2.4 German 1 5,743 0.4 2.7 4,492 0.3 2.2 German 2 5,635 0.4 2.6 5,264 0.4 2.5 Polish 1 5,605 0.4 2.6 11,729 0.8 5.6 Polish 2 1,504 0.1 0.7 1,400 0.1 0.7 Greek 1 4,347 0.3 2.0 2,727 0.2 1.3 Greek 2 307 0.0 0.1 278 0.0 0.1 Yugoslavian 1 11,076 0.8 5.2 10,701 0.8 5.1 Yugoslavian 2 1,285 0.1 0.6 1,225 0.1 0.6 East European 1 7,865 0.5 3.7 8,620 0.6 4.1 East European 2 6,884 0.5 3.2 6,801 0.5 3.3 South European 1 4,387 0.3 2.1 2,178 0.2 1.0 South European 2 1,239 0.1 0.6 1,127 0.1 0.5 African 1 7,957 0.6 3.7 3,837 0.3 1.8 African 2 372 0.0 0.2 373 0.0 0.2 Latin American 1 8,572 0.6 4.0 8,100 0.6 3.9 Latin American 2 346 0.0 0.2 333 0.0 0.2 Asian 1 14,538 1.0 6.8 11,527 0.8 5.5 Asian 2 2,075 0.1 1.0 1,987 0.1 1.0 Iranian 1 10,916 0.8 5.1 5,638 0.4 2.7 Turkish 1 6,293 0.4 2.9 4,781 0.3 2.3 Other 2 392 289 Total 1,443,461 100.0 100.0 1,381,191 100.0 100.0 Notes: Numbers shown are for respondents 26 49 years of age who were born or arrived in Sweden before 1989. Further divisions of certain groups can be seen in Table 11.11. The suffix 1 indicates first generation and the suffix 2 indicates second generation. immigrants from non-european countries in particular, but also from Yugoslavia and Poland, for example. 21 One consequence of the different waves of immigration (and the resulting difference between the number of first and second generation immigrants) is that some ethnic groups consist of people who have been living in Sweden for many years, while 21 Unfortunately, it is nearly impossible to replicate the analyses in this chapter on more recent data as Sweden abolished the censuses after 1990. This means that it is not (yet) possible to get register data on the population s occupational attainment of sufficient scope and quality after that.
IMMIGRANTS IN THE SWEDISH LABOUR MARKET 467 others arrived very recently a difference that of course will lead to corresponding differences in their labour-market outcomes. This heterogeneity will be handled in special analyses by controlling for year of immigration. Social class is based on information on occupation and employment status, resulting in a standard classification used by Statistics Sweden (1982). This class schema is similar to the commonly used so-called EGP class schema (Erikson and Goldthorpe 1992: 35 47). (For details of the way this schema has had to be modified for the Swedish data, see the technical appendix to this chapter.) The occupational title and employment status were reported by the respondents in the 1990 Census. Both parental education and social class origin will also be used as control variables. The definitions and data sources are the same as for the respondent and I have taken the higher of the father s and mother s education and class to indicate family characteristics. In addition, the analyses use single parenthood as a control as well to identify those who live with a single parent from those who live with two parents (whether biological or not). It can be noted from Table 11.3 that some categories are rather small, while the number of first-generation Finns is very large they dominate the immigrant group when it is defined as the total of first- and secondgeneration immigrants. Due to demographic reasons, such as age and immigration year, different countries are more and less represented in the two different generations of immigrants. For example, among the second generation the Nordic groups dominate (56%) while in the first generation only the Finns stand out, constituting 30% of men and 38% of women. Apart from these categories, however, there is a fairly even spread of ethnic groups, reflecting the wide variety of immigrants coming to Sweden in the post-second World War period. Educational qualifications are measured by a standard Swedish educational coding (SUN, see Statistics Sweden 1988) that has been recoded in order to be comparable with the CASMIN schema as developed by Müller and associates (Müller and Shavit 1998; see the description in the technical appendix to this chapter). The information comes primarily from a register on the education of the population which was complemented with a question on the highest educational qualification attained in the 1990 Census. 22 22 The existing code at the time of the census, derived from official registers of examined from secondary and tertiary level schools, was printed on the census form and the respondent was asked to correct it if wrong (in particular, vocational qualifications not taken in the public school
468 Jan O. Jonsson Information on economic activity and non-employment is unfortunately not available from the censuses. This means that we cannot with any certainty distinguish between those who are unemployed, students, home-workers or gainfully employed in 1990. However, the latter category should have an occupational code (few of the others would have such a code). As we can expect some non-response on the question of occupation in the census, especially among immigrants who arrived quite recently, estimating the number of non-employed from the occupational code alone is not feasible. Fortunately, the data include information on individual income for 1990 from tax records. 23 Thus I estimated a lowest bound of income by cross-classifying the occupational code (missing versus other) against income bands, and choosing an income limit above which it seems unlikely that a respondent would be without a job. Those with income above that limit are all classified as employed, together with those below that limit with an occupational code. This strategy leads to estimates of non-employment of 6% for men and 9% for women. The group of non-employed, it must be added, is not the same as the unemployed. Especially among female immigrants there may be house workers in it (although those on parental leave who held a job prior to this will be counted as employed). There will also be those who are undergoing labour-market training, most of which is hidden unemployment. There is also a certain number of university students among the non-employed. However, because those younger than 26 are not in the data set, this is not such a big problem (and when I experimented by raising the age-limit to 30 the changes in the proportion of non-employed were rather similar among different ethnic groups, i.e., also in the reference group of Swedish ancestry). While it is unwise to pay attention to the exact numbers or percentages of non-employed in the data, the relation between ethnic groups is likely to be a reliable estimate of the relative proportions that are out of the labour market, and therefore of which groups have a particularly vulnerable position. system would have been under-reported in the register). For most immigrants there would not have been a code as they had their education from another country. In these cases, the educational information is based on the response to the census. The relatively large proportion of missing information indicates that some did not respond to this question, and in other cases the information gathered was not sufficient for assigning an educational code. 23 As the income variable taps total income, which also includes benefits and allowances, it is not possible to use the criteria positive income as a substitute for non-employment, as everyone has a positive value.
IMMIGRANTS IN THE SWEDISH LABOUR MARKET 469 Educational and labour-market attainment of different ethnic groups This section presents the actual differences in educational and labourmarket attainment among the ethnic groups. Tables 11.4, 11.5, and 11.6 report outflow distributions of educational qualifications, gainful employment, and occupational class (among those estimated to be gainfully employed), for 26 49-year olds of different ethnic origins. Tables 11.4A and 11.4B show the distribution of highest educational qualification for the different ethnic groups, for men and women respectively. The available information sums row-wise to 100%. The information is missing for only 1% or fewer of those groups that have their education in Sweden; however it is clear that classifying qualifications of immigrants involves a number of difficulties. 24 Because of the sizeable amount of non-classifiable educational qualifications, missing is used as a separate category in the analyses below, and results are reported from models including the interaction between the missing value status and country of origin. The immigrant groups differ markedly in their educational profiles. 25 In general, first-generation immigrants have relatively low qualifications, both compared with those of Swedish (and mixed) ancestry and with second-generation immigrants. Those from Greece, other Southern European countries, and Yugoslavia clearly have lower average levels of education than native-born Swedes, as do Finnish men and women from Asia (except Iran) and Africa. But the educational level of Turks, especially women, lags even further behind. 26 Immigrants from Eastern European countries (except Yugoslavia), on the other hand, have relatively high levels of education. Many intellectuals (politically active as well as from groups who were harassed in their home countries, such as Jews) came from these countries, mostly as political refugees. Immigrants 24 Missing values range from almost 15% (men from other Western nations) to around 5% (most European origins) or lower (for Nordic immigrants). For immigrants of Non-European origin around 10% have missing values on education. The problem is insignificant among the second-generation immigrants. 25 The groups we compare have different distributions of birth cohorts which affect their average educational chances, in addition to their country of origin and in conjunction with the selectivity of emigration. 26 It is interesting to note the overall quite large gender differences in the most educationally disadvantaged groups, with women having less education than men (although for those of Swedish ancestry, the distribution is fairly even between men and women).
470 Jan O. Jonsson from other Western countries also have relatively high educational qualifications. In relation to the immigration history of Sweden it can be noted that many early immigrants (such as the Germans and those from the Baltic countries) have relatively high levels of education; that the immigrants of the mid-period of the 1960s and 1970s show a mixed pattern, with refugees having high formal qualifications (e.g., Poles and Latin Americans) but labour-force immigrants (e.g., Greeks, Yugoslavs, and Finnish men) relatively low levels; while the most recent immigrants (with the important exception of the Turks) are comparatively well educated (e.g., those from Iran, and men from Africa and some countries in Asia). Tables 11.4A and 11.4B also demonstrate that differences between second-generation immigrants and those with Swedish ancestry are substantially less than for first-generation immigrants. The increase in educational attainment across generations is particularly great for women from the more educationally disadvantaged countries of origin. Further analyses (e.g., Erikson and Jonsson 1993; Similä 1994; Jonsson 2002) show that once birth cohort, family structure, and the social and educational background of individuals are taken into account, the educational attainment of children of immigrant parents is, on average, not lower than that of children with Swedish ancestry. Some groups do markedly better (especially those from Eastern Europe, such as Poland) whereas some do worse (e.g., those from Nordic countries and Asia). A common pattern among second-generation immigrants, however, is polarisation: children of immigrant origin have higher chances of achieving a university degree but also stand greater risks of early school-leaving. 27 Table 11.5 displays the proportion of non-employed for different ethnic groups. It should be recalled that the percentages are estimates and that we should concentrate on the differences between groups rather than on the absolute values. Generally, the proportion non-employed is much higher among first-generation immigrants, both in comparison with second-generation immigrants and with Swedes of native-born parents. 28 Overall, Table 11.5 paints a rather gloomy picture of weak labour-market attachment among several immigrant groups. Non-employment is 27 This is the case for children whose parents immigrated from Latin America, Greece, Turkey, and Africa. For all immigrant groups except those from other Nordic countries the outstanding pattern is that they choose vocational branches of study at secondary school to a much lesser degree than those with Swedish-born parents (Jonsson 2002, tables 6 7). 28 A peculiar exception is the pattern for Yugoslavs among whom second-generation immigrants have a higher non-employment rate than the first.