As fear mongering about foreigners is still happening, and conciously done with inflated numbers, bunching a lot of people into a seemingly homogenous group, it is high time to break down the numbers in more detail. These are the actual statistics from 2014, for how many people living in Sweden were born in another country. It is still not 21-25% as is commonly argued.
The numbers include people who came many decades ago, during ww2, people who come to study, to work etc, and a very good chunk of them are other Scandinavians or Europeans. In fact about a third are other Scandinavians and about another third from Europe. Only a tiny minory are from the Middle-East or Africa, and we get muslims from Europe, just as we get Christians from other parts of the world.
These numbers include people who have come here through marriage and adoption, as students, for work & business, as refugees & relatives and just as unspecified migration. Obviously though, asylum seekers by far outnumber work migrants in the Middle-Eastern and African groups.
According to this out of the 16.5% that are born in another country, the division is like this:
2.5% of our total population are born in Scandinavia outside of Sweden
5% of our total population are born in Europe
3.9% of our total population are born in the “Middle-East”; e.g United-Arab Emirates, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Jemen, Kuwait, Lebanon, Palestine, Gaza, Afganistan or Turkey
2% of our total population are born in Asia, not counting countries that are commonly regarded as “Middle-Eastern (see above)
1.7% of our total population are born in Africa
0.3% of our total population are born in North America
0.7% of our total population are born in South America
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Breakdown of biggest nationalities above 10 000 people.
Finland 158 488
Denmark 42 374
Norway 42 301
Poland 81 697
Yugoslavia 67 892
Bosnia & Hercegovina 57 289
Germany 49 359
Romania 24 666
Great Britain & Northern Ireland 24 399
Greece 15 176
Iraq 130 178
Iran 68 436
Syria 67 671
Turkey 46 146
Afghanistan 28 443
Lebanon 25 699
Thailand 38 129
China 28 699
India 21 929
Russia 19 028
Vietnam 16 629
Somalia 57 906
Eritrea 21 827
Ethiopia 16 145
Chile 28 216
Colombia 11 709
Also, closely connected to this is the makeup of these groups and the reasons why they come, as refugees, to work or to study:
Included in the list of people born outside of Sweden but living here are those who intend to stay more than one year. 16.5% of our population was included in this, divided accordingly
2.5% of our total population are born in Scandinavia outside of Sweden
5% of our total population are born in Europe
3.9% of our total population are born in the “Middle-East”; e.g United-Arab Emirates, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Jemen, Kuwait, Lebanon, Palestine, Gaza, Afganistan or Turkey
2% of our total population are born in Asia, not counting countries that are commonly regarded as “Middle-Eastern (see above)
1.7% of our total population are born in Africa
0.3% of our total population are born in North America
0.7% of our total population are born in South America
For better understanding what all this means, the absolute majority of those listed from Europe, North-America and Asia, including Iran, Turkey and India, come here for work or to study, meaning they do not come to stay and will return to their home countries. Not counting those from ex-Yugoslavia and the Balkan Wars of the 90s of course.
In those numbers are also counted people who have lived here more than 50 years, for example the 158 488 Finns, of which 75% are 45+ years old and the majority coming in the 60s and 70s.
Out of the 105 102 foreigners who were given resident permit in Sweden in 2010 76% (70 718) belonged to these later categories, work, study, adoption, next-of-kin (non-refugee related) and just visiting. 14% (15 296) were given resident permit as asylum seekers or relatives of asylum seekers.
Looking at Iran, Iraq and “Other Countries” we also see the following:
90% (4 661) of those given a resident permit coming from Iran was for work, study or for visiting.
53% (2 645) of those given a resident permit coming from Iraq was for work, study or for visiting.
88% (47 379) of those given a resident permit coming from “other countries” was for work, study or for visiting.
One category is difficult to analyze though; “relatives” that aren’t connected to refugees. If we would count that as belonging to non-work-related immigration we wold get the following:
76% (3 940) of those given a resident permit coming from Iran was for work, study or for visiting.
12% (907) of those given a resident permit coming from Iraq was for work, study or for visiting.
64% (34 140) of those given a resident permit coming from “other countries” was for work, study or for visiting.
This has changed drastically in late 2014 though and the desperate Syrian crisis needs to be handled by Europe, Asia, the Middle-East and hopefully North-America too.
Of course, and for obvious reasons, many Syrians have arrived since 2014 and are currently awaiting decisions on their applications. The crisis intensified with the war in Syria and we had a lot of people coming in a very short period of time. 51 338 Syrians sought asylum in 2015 alone. About half of the total asylum seekers here in Sweden were granted asylum in 2015, although of course others who live here are waiting for a decision to be made, and others have stayed illegally when having their application rejected. For the Syrians specifically the numbers for approved asylum seekers are:
2015: 18 523
2016: 48 594
Adding a total of 67,117 Syrian refugees granted asylum in those two years. A number of them are likely to return again if the war settles, as has happened with other refugees. And since many of them have not been given permanent residency. Almost no Syrians have their applications rejected given the extreme circumstances they are coming from. They also make up +90% of the approved applications.
Also noteworthy is that changes in law mean that while people are granted asylum, it does not give automatic permanent residency. Since June 2016 a refugee is given a temporary 3-year residency, while people in need of protection are given a 13-month residency only. 75% of the approved asylum seekers belong to the latter category.
Likewise next-of-kin immigration is now also much more tightly restricted.
