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.

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.

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 was the Nordic country that received the highest number of immigrants from 2001 to 2021. In 2021, nearly 91,000 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 44 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.

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.

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.

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 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.

About 118 thousand people born in the Americas lived in Sweden in 2020. The top five countries of birth among immigrants from the Americas living in Sweden in 2020 were Chile, United States, Colombia, Brazil, and Peru.

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 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.

Descriptive statistics for country-of-origin and individual variables.

In the Nordic countries, the largest number of people emigrated from Denmark in 2022. Nearly 70,000 people emigrated from Denmark that year, even though its neighbor Sweden has a population that is nearly twice as large. Iceland, on the other hand, had the lowest number of emigrants that year. Meanwhile, the highest number of immigrants over the last years arrived in Sweden.

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.

This research project investigated the relationships between care, inequalities and wellbeing among different generations of transnational families in the UK, Spain, France and Sweden.

‘Transnational families’ are family groups where one or more family members spend all or most of their time geographically separated across borders, but share a collective sense of connection as a ‘family’. This project established a new transnational interdisciplinary network across the four partner countries. The network built the capacity of migrants and practitioners through developing research skills and co-producing knowledge. It also built the capacity of early career and established academics through mutual learning in participatory and ethnographic approaches.

The consortium facilitated comparative research that is influencing policy and practice changes to improve the equality and wellbeing of migrant carers of different generations. The research has shown that transnational families simultaneously manage multiple caring responsibilities, both proximately for family members, and by caring at a distance for kin living in other countries. Families’ opportunities and access to social protection are shaped by intersecting inequalities based on legal status, nationality, race and ethnicity, disability/chronic illness, socio-economic status, language-related inequalities, gender and generation.

The physical and mental health, economic, social and emotional impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic were interlinked for migrants and led to the further marginalisation of transnational families, particularly those with insecure legal status and low socio-economic status. The deficits of migration and care regimes, alongside the absence of kin, create the need for children and youth to take on caring roles in transnational families. Children’s care work is often invisible, but may be crucial in enabling parents/relatives to fill gaps in care provision, facilitating access to public services through language and digital brokering. The accelerated shift towards digital technology becoming the primary gateway to access public services particularly affects older generations and those with low levels of literacy or language proficiency in the dominant societal language and increases the reliance on younger generations.

The research highlighted several barriers to accessing affordable, appropriate and high-quality language education provision. Negative impacts of caregiving were evidenced among middle and younger generations in terms of their education, employment and finances, family relationships, social participation, health and wellbeing. Such impacts could have significant implications for carers’ long term opportunities and wellbeing, especially among transnational families with high care needs who were already facing financial hardships and insecurity.

Policy recommendations focus on levelling out inequalities, expanding the definition of ‘family’ in reunification policies, recognising children’s care work in transnational families, making public services more accessible, welcoming and inclusive for migrant carers and their families.

The findings across the four countries have been published in an open access Report (Summary also available in French, Spanish and Swedish), 4 Policy Briefs and 11 academic articles to date, 13 accessible film outputs and disseminated through regional workshops, an international Symposium and professional networks. We guest-edited a special issue of Population, Space and Place journal on ‘Intergenerational care, inequalities and wellbeing among transnational families in Europe’, which includes 5 papers based on the findings.

This innovative comparative research project investigated the relationships between care, inequalities and wellbeing among different generations of transnational families in the UK, Spain, France & Sweden. The COVID-19 crisis has brought into stark relief the care deficits many European countries are confronting as ageing societies, with low-paid women migrants often filling gaps in formal care provision, while their own caring responsibilities for kin are often overlooked. Demographic shifts due to population ageing and increased international migration are leading to major changes in the provision of care, social protection and intergenerational responsibilities. These transformations may exacerbate existing inequalities facing migrant families with care needs. The project compared migrant carers' and transnational families' experiences within four partner countries with contrasting welfare models, migration regimes and post-colonial legacies. Using a multi-sited family-focused ethnographic & participatory action research methodology, we worked with partner organisations to train migrant peer researchers and supported them to undertake research with families, building trust and capacity within communities. We selected a diverse sample of 124 transnational families...

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.

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.

The largest number of asylum applications among men in Sweden in 2023 were submitted by Afghans, amounting to over 950 applications. Immigrants from Uzbekistan constituted the second largest group of asylum seekers with 654 applications, followed by Iraqi asylum seekers. In total, 12,644 people applied for asylum in Sweden in 2023.