The employment and income performance of immigrants in Sweden, 1970-1990

In recent decades, Sweden has suffered from a relatively low growth rate, while undergoing a transformation towards increased service sector employment and decreased industrial employment. Simultaneously with the economic changes, the constitution of immigration to Sweden has also changed significantly, shifting from European labor migrants to non-European refugees and tied movers. This Paper discusses the forces behind the decreasing labor market attachment among immigrants to Sweden in the period 1970-1990. Points of special interest here are employment rates and relative incomes of various immigrant nationalities. This is accomplished through the charting of labor force Participation rates and employment patterns of different immigrant groups over the period in question. The statistics in this paper are based on the five most recent Swedish censuses, from which we have data at the individual level regarding age, sex, country of origin, employment status, sector of employment, and immigration year.