The Regional Settlement Patterns of Immigrants to Sweden 1967-2005

Authors

• Daniel Rauhut
• Mats Johansson

DOI: https://doi.org/10.23979/fypr.45068

Keywords:

immigrants, refugees, labour markets, settlement patterns

Abstract

The aim of this study is to analyse the initial allocation of immigrants to Sweden
1967-2005 by age in a regional perspective. Vacancies, unemployment and labour
market participation as well as geographical areas with many previous immigrants
are included in the analysis as pull-factors.

A multivariate cross-section OLS regression model will be used to estimate the relative
initial regional distribution of immigrants in Sweden in 1967, 1975, 1990 and 2005 by
age. The chosen method enables to control for a subset of explanatory variables and
examine the effect of a selected independent variable when estimating the regional
pull-factors to immigration. This study uses data collected from Statistics Sweden (SCB)
and the National Labour Market Board (AMS). The data used is regional macro data,
which does not contain information on single individuals.
The overall conclusion is that previous immigrants had an impact on age groups in
their initial regional settlement pattern in 1967 - 2005. Few of the other independent
variables show any coefficients which are statistically separated from zero.