People born in Syria made up the largest group of Sweden's foreign-born population in 2023. Nearly ******* people born in Syria lived in Sweden as of 2023. Iraqis 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.

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.

Sweden immigration statistics for 2015 was 1,639,771, a 18.4% increase from 2010.

<ul style='margin-top:20px;'>

<li>Sweden immigration statistics for 2010 was <strong>1,384,929</strong>, a <strong>23.02% increase</strong> from 2005.</li>
<li>Sweden immigration statistics for 2005 was <strong>1,125,790</strong>, a <strong>12.15% increase</strong> from 2000.</li>
<li>Sweden immigration statistics for 2000 was <strong>1,003,798</strong>, a <strong>7.24% increase</strong> from 1995.</li>
</ul>International migrant stock is the number of people born in a country other than that in which they live. It also includes refugees. The data used to estimate the international migrant stock at a particular time are obtained mainly from population censuses. The estimates are derived from the data on foreign-born population--people who have residence in one country but were born in another country. When data on the foreign-born population are not available, data on foreign population--that is, people who are citizens of a country other than the country in which they reside--are used as estimates. After the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 people living in one of the newly independent countries who were born in another were classified as international migrants. Estimates of migrant stock in the newly independent states from 1990 on are based on the 1989 census of the Soviet Union. For countries with information on the international migrant stock for at least two points in time, interpolation or extrapolation was used to estimate the international migrant stock on July 1 of the reference years. For countries with only one observation, estimates for the reference years were derived using rates of change in the migrant stock in the years preceding or following the single observation available. A model was used to estimate migrants for countries that had no data.

In 2023, immigrants aged 25 to 34 years formed the biggest group in Sweden with nearly 30,000 people. The second biggest group of immigrants was people aged 35 to 44, closely followed by the age group 15 to 24. A total of 102,000 immigrants arrived in Sweden in 2022.

Over the past 23 years, the total population of Sweden increased steadily. In 2000, there were nearly 8.9 million people living in the Scandinavian country, and this had increased to 10.55 million in 2023. The population growth is expected to continue over the next decades, and it is estimated that the population of Sweden will reach over 13 million by 2080.

Immigration drove the population growth

One main reason for the steadily increasing is the number of immigrants arriving in the country. Even though the number of immigrants fell since the peak in 2016, the population with a foreign background increased steadily over the past 10 years.

Syrians make up the largest group of foreigners

The high number of immigrants arriving in Sweden in 2016 was caused by the high number or refugees fleeing the Syrian Civil War. As of 2022, Syrians made up the largest foreign group residing in the country. Next to refugees from the Middle East, immigrants from other EU-members such as Poland and neighboring Finland constituted a high number of the foreign-born citizens living in the country.

The number of people born outside of Sweden as a share of the Swedish population increased since 2010. That year, 1.38 million of the country's inhabitants were born outside of Sweden, whereas this number had increased to 2.17 million by 2023. In other words, foreign-born citizens made up around 20 percent of the population in Sweden in 2023. Of the 2.17 million people born outside of Sweden, the highest number came from Syria.

Sweden was the Nordic country that received the highest number of immigrants from 2001 to 2021. In 2021, nearly ****** people immigrated to Sweden, but was overtaken by Denmark in 2022. Sweden was also the country in the region with the highest net migration over the last years. Iceland, which also has the smallest population of the five, had the lowest number of immigrants. Migration to Sweden As the Nordic country with the highest number of migrants, nearly ** percent of survey respondents consider immigration an important issue for Swedish society, more than other European countries. In 2023, most immigrants to Sweden were Swedes returning to the country, followed by India, Poland, and Germany. The need for migration in Nordic nations Migrants often fill in gaps within labor markets that local populations cannot fill. In Nordic nations, these gaps are becoming more apparent as fertility rates decrease. Over the past decade, crude birth rates have decreased in all Nordic countries. Meanwhile, those aged 70 years and older are becoming larger portions of Nordic societies. Declining birth rates combined with aging societies mean that labor markets will be challenged to have enough workers.

Sweden experienced a positive migration flow since 2010. Many individuals are migrating to Sweden every year, and fewer individuals are emigrating. In 2023, more than 20,000 more people immigrated to Sweden than people emigrating from it. This has been a major contributing factor for Sweden's population growth, despite a declining fertility rate.

The immigrants 

A large group of immigrants were Swedes who once left their home country to settle in another country for at least 12 months, and then returned. This was the largest group of immigrants in 2022, followed by Indians.

The emigrants 

When it comes to people emigrating from Sweden, a high number leave for the Nordic countries Denmark and Norway, but people returning to the Untied Kingdom made up the largest group in 2022. A large group of individuals who emigrated from Sweden were born abroad, immigrated to Sweden and lived there for at least 12 months, before returning to their countries of birth.

People from Somalia made up the largest group of foreign-born citizens from Africa living in Sweden in 2022, with nearly 70,000 people. Eritreans and Ethiopians made up the second and third largest group, respectively, meaning that a high number of the foreign-born born population from African countries come from the Horn of Africa. This is a region characterized by famines, terrorism, and authoritarian rule over the past decades, resulting in a high number of refugees.

1. Large carnivores are expanding in Europe, and their return is associated with conflicts that often result in policies to regulate their population size through culling. Being wide-ranging species, their populations are often distributed across several jurisdictions, which may vary in the extent to which they use lethal control. This creates the conditions for the establishment of source-sink dynamics across borders, which may frustrate the ability of countries to reach their respective management objectives. 2. To explore the consequences of this issue, we constructed a vec-permutation projection model, applied to the case of wolverines in south-central Scandinavia, shared between Norway (where they are culled) and Sweden (where they are protected). We evaluated the effect of compensatory immigration on wolverine population growth rates, and if the effect was influenced by the distance to the national border. We assessed to what extent compensatory immigration had an influence on the number of removals needed to keep the population at a given growth rate. 3. In Norway the model estimated a stable trend, whereas in Sweden it produced a 10% annual increase. The effect of compensatory immigration corresponded to a 0.02 reduction in population growth rate in Sweden and to a similar increase in Norway. This effect was stronger closer to the Norwegian-Swedish border, but weak when moving away from it. An average of 33 wolverines were shot per year in the Norwegian part of the study area. If no compensatory immigration from Sweden had occurred, 28 wolverines shot per year would have been sufficient to achieve the same goal. About 15.5% of all the individuals harvested in Norway between 2005-2012 were compensated for by immigrants, causing a decrease in population growth rate in Sweden. 4. Synthesis and applications. When a population is transboundary, the consequences of management decisions are also transboundary, even though the political bodies in charge of those decisions, the stakeholders who influence them, and the taxpayers who finance them are not. It is important that managers and citizens be informed that a difference in management goals can reduce the efficiency, and increase the costs, of wildlife management.

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.

The highest number of people emigrating from Sweden in 2023 moved to the United Kingdom, the total number amounting to 5,000. The Germany was the second most common country for emigration, while neighboring Denmark came in third. The destination country of 16,000 emigrants was unknown.

This is the Swedish part of the 2003 'International Social Survey Program' (ISSP), and it is the second time ISSP focuses on national identity. The questions on national consciousness and national identity include: Identification with the town, the city, the region, the nation and with the respective continent; most important characteristics for national identity; identification with one's own nation and national pride (scale); perceived pride in the democracy of the country, the political influence of the country in the world, the economic achievement, the social security system, the scientific achievements, the achievements in sports, the achievements in arts or literature, the armed forces, the history and equal rights of all social groups in society; preference for protective duty to support the national economy; attitude to the right of international institutions to enforce solutions to be accepted nationally; attitude to enforcing national interests regardless of evoking conflicts with other countries; rejection of acquisition of land by foreigners in one's country; preference for national films in national television stations; damage done by large international companies to the local business; attitude to free trade; attitude to follow the decisions of international organisations even if the local government does not agree with them; international organisations take away too much power from the country; availability of worldwide information as a benefit of the internet; importance of sharing national customs and traditions to achieve full nationality; attitude to government support of national minorities to preserve their customs and habits; preference for assimilation of minorities or retention of their identity; hostility to foreigners and prejudices against immigrants (scale); attitude to a reduction of immigration of foreigners; respondents citizenship; citizenship of parents at birth of respondent; birthplace or citizenship of parents should allow naturalization of children; same rights for citizens and legal immigrants; attitude towards stronger measures regarding illegal immigrants; languages spoken at home; perceived ethnic affiliation and strength of this feeling; advantageousness of membership of the country in the EU; benefits from EU-membership; attitude towards a powerful EU-government.

Demographic variables include sex; age; marital status; steady life-partner; years in school, current employment status; current employment status of spouse; hours worked weekly; occupation of respondent and spouse (ISCO-88); respondent and spouse working for private, public sector or self-employed; supervisor function; union membership; household size; family income; respondents earnings; household composition; self-placement on a left-right continuum; party preference; vote last election; religious denomination; frequency of church attendance; self-placement on a top-bottom scale; region; town size, rural or urban region; ethnicity or nationality.

Purpose:

ISSP aims to design and implement internationally comparable attitude surveys. The study in 2003 investigating National Identity.

IntroductionDespite the commitment of the Swedish government to ensuring equal access to Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights services for all citizens, shortcomings persist among the migrant population. In cases where healthcare providers lack sufficient knowledge or hold misconceptions and biases about these contentious issues, it can lead to the delivery of suboptimal care. Therefore, the objective of this study was to assess the level of knowledge of Swedish healthcare providers on global and Swedish migrant Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights.MethodsA national cross-sectional study was conducted using a questionnaire consisting of seven questions related to global and Swedish migrant Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights. The questionnaire was distributed among midwives, nurses, gynecologists and obstetricians, and hospital social workers (N = 731). The analysis was guided by the Factfulness framework developed by Hans Rosling to identify disparities between healthcare providers’ viewpoints and evidence-based knowledge.ResultsThere was an overall lack of knowledge among the health care providers on these issues. The highest correct responses were on the question on abandonment of female genital cutting/mutilation after migration (74%). The findings indicated that healthcare providers originating from Sweden, physicians, those with fewer years of clinical experience, and exhibiting more migrant-friendly attitudes, demonstrated a higher level of knowledge regarding global and Swedish migrant Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights.ConclusionThis study demonstrates that healthcare providers lacked knowledge of global and Swedish migrant Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights, which was almost uniformly distributed, except among those with more comprehensive and recent education. Contrary to expectations, healthcare professionals did not primarily rely on their education and experiences but were influenced by their personal values and opinions. The study underscores the importance of upgrading knowledge in Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights and encourages policymakers, professionals, and students to base their opinions on well-founded facts, particularly in the context of a diverse and globalized society.

Over the last decade, there were constantly more men than women immigrating to Sweden. From the peak in 2016 after the high number of refugees entering Europe in 2015, the number of both male and female immigrants decreased, reaching its lowest level in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2023, around 48,000 men and 46,000 women immigrated to Sweden. Of these, the largest number were Swedish citizens returning to the country.

Teaching that Matters for Migrant Students [TEAMS] is an international project carried out by teams of researchers from the University of Edinburgh, Stockholm University, University of Jyväskylä and University of Turku. The project was funded by NordForsk. The aim of the project was to help teachers and schools to meet the needs of migrant students. The project focused on the work of teachers within different schools and different support systems that are available to students and teachers in Scotland, Sweden and Finland. TEAMS aimed to understand how teachers and schools work with others within and beyond schools to enable integration processes around migrant students. Therefore, the project focused on collaborative practices that help build inclusive school environments.

The project collected both quantitative and qualitative data on teachers' beliefs, practices and social networks, and the integration experiences of migrant students in all three countries. This research data set includes only the Finnish qualitative data collected in three different waves during 2021–2022. The data collected from two lower secondary schools (grades 7–9) located in large and middle-sized cities in Finland.The data consist of qualitative interview data on school staff/students' beliefs (n= 15/0 (wave 1); n=7/5 (w2); n= 3/11 (w3), including 5 pair/group interviews) and qualitative observations data on school staff practices and interaction (6 days, around 40 pages of notes without pictures, font size 12). The data include interview transcripts and fieldwork notes from teachers, instructional support staff, school leaders and external collaborators in MS Word (.docx) and ATLAS.ti (.atlproj22) files. The ATLAS.ti software has been used in processing the interview transcripts.

In 2022, the largest group of foreign-born citizens from European countries residing in Sweden were from the neighboring country Finland. 133,000 Fins lived in Sweden in 2022. People born in Poland made up the second largest group of foreign-born Europeans, followed by people born in the former Yugoslavia, from which many people migrated during the Yugoslavian wars in the 1990s.

In 2022, the largest group of Asian foreign-born citizens in Sweden came from Syria, with nearly 200,000 inhabitants. This was also the largest group of foreign-born citizens in Sweden in total that year. With 147,000 inhabitants, Iraqi made up the second largest group of citizens born in Asia living in Sweden, followed by Iranians.

Over the past 10 years, the number of people with an immigrant background living in Norway increased. Whereas nearly 1.1 million people with an immigrant background lived in Norway in 2014, this number had increased to nearly 1.5 million as of 2024. Of these, first generation immigrants was, by far, the largest group, counting 930,000 people. The second largest group was people born in Norway with one parent born abroad, followed by inhabitants born in Norway with two parents born abroad. Immigration to the Nordics Norway is not the only Nordic country with increasing immigration. Immigration has increased in each Nordic country from 2000 and onwards, with Sweden leading immigration until being taken over by Denmark in 2022. Sweden has taken in a comparatively high number of refugees, but most immigrants to the Nordics are from other European countries, such as in Finland. Population challenges in the Nordics Over time, the fertility rate has declined in each Nordic country, and as of 2022, Iceland had the highest fertility rate in the region with only 1.6 children born per woman. Moreover, those aged 70 and older are increasingly making up larger portions of Nordic societies. These factors combined can create challenges as there are less workers available, making immigration an important factor in the Nordic labor markets.