The majority of immigrants moving to Sweden in 2023 were Swedes returning to Sweden. Nearly 10,600 Swedes returned to their home country in 2023. The remaining top five countries of origin were India, Poland, Germany, and Syria. In total, 95,000 people immigrated to Sweden in 2023.
Syrians largest immigrant group
Of Sweden's foreign-born population, Syrians made up the largest group. Following the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War in 2011, many people left the country in search of a better life in Europe, some of which landed in Sweden. In 2022, Sweden hosted the world's 7th largest group of Syrian refugees.
Immigration drives population increase in Sweden
Over the past decade, Sweden has seen a positive migration rate, with more people immigrating to the country than people leaving. This is one of the main reasons why the country's population has been increasing steadily over recent years.
Until 2016, Sweden had among the most generous asylum laws within the European Union. As a result, the immigration increased for several years, reaching 163,000 immigrants in 2016. During 2016, Sweden sharpened their asylum laws, and the number of immigrants started to decline. In 2020, also as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of immigrants in Sweden fell to 82,500, before increasing slightly again in 2021 and 2022. Over the last years, there was also a decline in the number of asylum grants in Sweden.
Large inflow of refugees
The so-called refugee crisis in the European Union that started in 2015 was characterized by a large inflow of refugees from non-European countries, mainly traversing the Mediterranean Sea in order to reach the European Union. In regards to the immigration trends to Sweden, one of the biggest groups in the last years consisted of Swedes returning to Sweden. Further countries that were among the top countries of origin in the latest years, were India, Syria, Germany, and Poland.
Decline in asylum grants in the European Union
Sweden is not the only country that sharpened the rules for asylum grants in 2016, it has been observed within the whole European Union. Since the end of 2016, there has been a significant decline in the number of accepted first instance asylum applications within the European Union.
People born in Syria made up the largest group of Sweden's foreign-born population in 2023. Nearly 200,000 people born in Syria lived in Sweden as of 2023. Iraqi made up the second largest group of foreign-born citizens, followed by Sweden's neighboring country Finland. The total number of foreign-born citizens living in the Scandinavian country increased over the past 10 years.
Migration contributes to population growth
Sweden's positive net migration rate meant that it's population increased steadily since 2000. In 2022, over 100,000 people immigrated to Sweden, which was still significantly lower than the record year 2016.
Syrians fleeing civil war
The record number of refugees arriving in 2016 was driven by Syrians fleeing the Civil War in the country. Following the Arab spring and protests for democracy in 2011, fighting broke out between the Syrian national army and several armed factions. Several million people fled the country as a result, some of them seeking refuge in Sweden.
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Many Western countries are built on a dual-earner model and have high levels of female labor force participation. Increasing the labor market activity of immigrant women is therefore seen as a key part of immigrant integration. However, female labor force participation (LFP) differs substantially between countries, reflecting differences in work-related gender norms that can continue to influence preferences and behaviors after migration. In this study, we investigate how origin-country gender norms and migrant selection interact to produce post-migration outcomes. Our data shows that immigrant women in Sweden have a higher level of pre-migration work experience than expected based on origin-country female LFP, indicating positive selection. Furthermore, the association between origin-country LFP and post-migration employment varied with work experience. For women without origin-country work experience, origin-country LFP was positively associated with employment in Sweden. For women with origin-country work experience, origin-country LFP however was not associated with higher likelihood of employment in Sweden. Though our focus is on immigrant women, we also include immigrant men in our analysis to test our prediction more thoroughly. For men without origin-country work experience, origin-country LFP was negatively associated with employment in Sweden, while we found no association for men with origin-country work experience. Our results show that migrant selection is a crucial factor in understanding the relationship between origin-country LFP and post-migration labor market outcomes, and that these patterns vary with gender. Policy interventions targeting immigrant women from countries with low female LFP should therefore not assume that women arrive socialized with gender-norms that hinder labor market activity.
Of the foreigners living in Sweden, people from North and Central America as well as Oceania had the highest education levels, with respectively 50 and 46 percent having a post-secondary education of three years or more. An upper secondary education was the most common education among people from other Nordic countries and European countries outside the Nordics and the European Union. Meanwhile, nearly 30 percent of people from Africa had a primary education or lower.
By far, Syrians made up the largest group of refugees living in Sweden in 2022, counting 111,000 people. Ukrainians, who made up the second largest group, counted just below 47,000. Meanwhile, Afghans made up the third largest group with 26,000 refugees. The total number of refugees living in Sweden increased over the past ten years.
https://www.gesis.org/en/institute/data-usage-termshttps://www.gesis.org/en/institute/data-usage-terms
TIES Germany is part of an international survey, conducted in 8 countries (Belgium, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, Netherlands, France, Spain and Austria). It is about children of immigrants from Turkey, Yugoslavia and Morocco.
Personal details; educational biography; labour market and occupational biography; biography of partner and parents; housing and neighbourhood; social relations and political participation; gender roles and child care; identity, language and transnationalism; religion and religiosity; income.
Topics: 1. Personal details: moved out of parents household; age at the time of moving; reason for moving; number and age of siblings; number of children that live elsewhere; German citizenship; German citizenship by birth; year of receipt the German citizenship; allegiance to other nations; intention to achieve the German citizenship within the next two years; reasons for no intention; other citizenship; received that citizenship by ancestry, marriage or naturalization.
Educational biography: age at first school experience (including pre-school and kindergarten); attendance of pre-school or kindergarten and its duration; kind of most important primary school; reason for attending that primary school; number of children of immigrant origin at that primary school; ever changed schools in primary school; ever repeated a grade or class in primary school; ever interrupted primary school in Germany to go abroad for a period of more than three months; age of leaving primary school; teacher’s recommendation at the end of primary school; recommended and actually entered kind of school; country specific level at which entered secondary school; still attending that school or level; completed that school or level and obtained a diploma or certificate; reason for quitting; age when completed or left the school; teacher’s recommendation for another education at the end of that school level; level or school attended next; returned to attend school again later in life; still attending that school or school level; completed that school or level and obtained a diploma or certificate; age of leaving that school; highest school level completed with a diploma; continued beyond that level and why; field or domain of highest qualification or current study; ever changed schools in secondary school; ever interrupted going to secondary school in Germany to go abroad for a period of more than three months; grade when interrupted; type of most important secondary school; number of children of immigrant origin at that secondary school, reason for attending that school; ever went to a remedial teacher during secondary school; ever had homework guidance during secondary school; got along with most teachers; got along with most classmates; most teachers really listened to what one had to say; when one needed extra help, one would receive it from teachers; quiet place at home to do homework during secondary school; number of books at home; siblings with a school diploma or certificate; highest diploma or certificate obtained by sibling(s); older and/or younger siblings who have left secondary school without diploma or certificate; close friends in secondary school who left without diploma or certificate; importance of mother, father, elder siblings, peers, teachers for support during secondary school; during secondary school: parents controlled time spent on homework, helped doing homework, made one do household chores or look after siblings, talked about school or studies with parents, parents met or talked to teachers; times an older sibling helped with the homework, talked about ones school or study with an older sibling; feeling of social acceptance in comparison to students of German origin during secondary school; experience of hostility or unfair treatment because of origin or background from students, teachers, principal, supervisor or headmaster; satisfaction with the achieved level of education; evaluating equal opportunities offered by German school system.
Labour market and occupational biography: current occupational situation; name or title of main job; kind of work (ISCO); year since working in that job; sector of the organization or company; kind and location of organization; number of working hours; kind of working agreement; supervising others; number of employees working in the business; current job; job and educational level correspondence; promotion in current job; number of (full-time) jobs before the cur...
18 to 35 year old residents of Berlin and Frankfurt with a Turkish or Jugoslav migration background
The number of people immigrating to Norway deceased from 2011 to 2020, before increasing in 2021 and 2022. The high number of immigrants arriving in 2022 must be seen in relation with the high number of refugees from Ukraine arriving after the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war that year.
A high number of immigrants from Poland
Most of the people immigrating to Norway come from other European countries as Norway is a member of the European Economic Area (EEA. It is not a full EU-member). With the exception of Ukrainian refugees and immigrants with an unknown origin, the highest number of immigrants came from Poland in 2022. Poles are also the biggest group of immigrants living in Norway.
Most emigrants move to Sweden
The number of people emigrating from Norway was at its higest in 2016, when 40,000 people left the country. It then decreased until 2019, before increasing again in 2021, reaching 34,000 emigrants. In 2021, the highest numbr of emigrants moved to Sweden.
In 2022, the highest number of asylum seekers in Denmark came from Ukraine. This does not included refugees who were granted protection under the Special Act Directive. That year, more than 2,000 people from Ukraine applied for asylum in the country. Next to Ukraine, Afghanistan and Syria were the two most common countries of origin for asylum applicants in Denmark in 2022.
Fewer asylum applications
In 2021, Denmark received 4,600 asylum applications. After peaking in 2015 in the aftermath of the influx of refugees to Europe that year, the number of asylum applicants arriving in Denmark ahs decreased. This is a result of external factors such as tighter control at the borders of the EU, that the war in Syria has moved into a new phase, and COVID-19, but also the internal factor of stricter asylum laws implemented by the government. These tightened immigration laws have resulted in both fewer asylum requests and fewer grants of asylum.
Sweden: a different picture
In the neighboring country Sweden, a significantly higher number of people applied for asylum. Until 2016, Sweden had one of the most generous asylum laws in the European Union. Like Denmark, however, Sweden sharpened its asylum laws in the wake of the so-called refugee crisis in 2015. Yet nearly 17,000 people applied for asylum in Sweden in 2022, a number more than three times higher than in Denmark. In a similar fashion, the number of asylums granted also declined significantly during this period.
In 2024, Turkey was the country that hosted the highest amount of Syrian refugees, amounting up to 3.1 million refugees. Lebanon was second, hosting 775,000 Syrian refugees. The data refers to the total number of Syrian refugees in a given country, not considering the date of their application for asylum or the date of their flight.
The vast majority of the 2,626 Icelandic citizens who emigrated in 2022 moved to one of the three Scandinavian countries Denmark, Sweden, or Norway. The highest number of these emigrated to Denmark. The fourth most common destination country was the United States. Considering emigration among both Icelandic and foreign citizens, the highest number emigrated to Poland.
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The majority of immigrants moving to Sweden in 2023 were Swedes returning to Sweden. Nearly 10,600 Swedes returned to their home country in 2023. The remaining top five countries of origin were India, Poland, Germany, and Syria. In total, 95,000 people immigrated to Sweden in 2023.
Syrians largest immigrant group
Of Sweden's foreign-born population, Syrians made up the largest group. Following the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War in 2011, many people left the country in search of a better life in Europe, some of which landed in Sweden. In 2022, Sweden hosted the world's 7th largest group of Syrian refugees.
Immigration drives population increase in Sweden
Over the past decade, Sweden has seen a positive migration rate, with more people immigrating to the country than people leaving. This is one of the main reasons why the country's population has been increasing steadily over recent years.