Immigrants in the Welfare State

Abstract

Since the Second World War, the number of immigrants in Sweden has increased rapidly. In 1940, the proportion of foreign-born people among the total population of the country amounted to only 1 per cent. The proportion had increased to nearly 7 per cent by 1970, and to about 11 per cent at the beginning of the twenty-first century — about 1 million individuals. About 50 per cent of the foreign-born individuals living in Sweden at the time of writing have acquired Swedish citizenship. Moreover, there is a growing group of so-called second-generation immigrants — that is, children born in Sweden with at least one parent born abroad. This group amounts to about 800,000 individuals at present. Thus the total number of first- and second-generation immigrants totals about 1.8 million individuals, some 20 per cent of the total population of Sweden.

I am grateful to Rolf Ohlsson and Bo Sodersten for their useful suggestions.