The “stranger” among Swedish “homo academicus” (original) (raw)

Challenges Faced by Immigrants with Higher Education in the Swedish Labour Market A Qualitative Research of the Factors Influencing the Underutilization of Immigrants' Foreign Educational Credentials in the Swedish labour market

Generally, immigrants face different challenges adapting to their new environment while starting a new life in the new environment. One of these problems is related to employment as they find it difficult finding jobs in their host countries. A number of them are often jobless or having jobs that do not correspond with their educational qualification. This is one of the factors that influence the earnings of immigrants in the Swedish labour market. This study focused on the factors influencing the underutilization of immigrant’s foreign educational credentials in the Swedish labour market. The study is based on human capital theory, cultural shock theory and discrimination theory. Through qualitative research design, rich detailed data about the phenomenon was collected from participants that participated in the study. Findings of the study revealed that the two major factors that influence the underutilization of immigrant’s foreign educational credential in the Swedish labour market are structural factors (lack of foreign educational credentials, lack of foreign work experiences, and discrimination) and individual factors (lack of social network with Swedish natives, inability to fluently communicate in Swedish, and loss of professional knowledge due to lack of practice). Key words: underutilization, Devaluation of foreign credentials, highly educated-immigrant, Inequality in labour market, challenges and barriers

Unequal Opportunities for Young People with Immigrant Backgrounds in the Swedish Labour Market

This paper investigates labour-market performance for 'young people with immigrant backgrounds' and those 'born in Sweden with native-born parents' in the Swedish labour market. It focuses on young people who were aged 18-20 during 1990, and their labour-market status after 8 years, in 1998. The results indicate that young people of immigrant descent have lower annual wage income and are at higher risk of not being employed than those born in Sweden with nativeborn parents. Differences in human capital characteristics cannot explain these results. Other theories, which stress the effect of discriminatory behaviour and the power of social network composition, are discussed as alternative interpretations. Having one native-born parent is considered to be important to labour market success. However, having a native-born father rather than a native-born mother is associated with better labour-market achievement.

Skilled Migrants in the Swedish Labour Market: An Analysis of Employment, Income and Occupational Status

Sustainability, 2021

In a globalised world with an increasing division of labour, the competition for highly skilled individuals—regardless of their origin—is growing, as is the value of such individuals for national economies. Yet the majority of studies analysing the economic integration of immigrants shows that those who are highly skilled also have substantial hurdles to overcome: their employment rates and salaries are lower and they face a higher education-to-occupation mismatch compared to highly skilled natives. This paper contributes to the paucity of studies on the employment patterns of highly skilled immigrants to Sweden by providing an overview of the socio-demographic characteristics, labour-market participation and occupational mobility of highly educated migrants in Sweden. Based on a statistical analysis of register data, we compare their employment rates, salaries and occupational skill level and mobility to those of immigrants with lower education and with natives. The descriptive ana...

Futures in line? Occupational choice among migrant adult students in Sweden

International Journal of Lifelong Education , 2019

The aim of this article is to analyse the ways in which migration plays out in adult students’ narratives about their occupational choice and future, focusing on three individual narratives of adult students with various experiences of migration to Sweden. Drawing on Sara Ahmed’s concep- tion of orientation, our results show how the adult students’ narratives on their future occupations are formed on the basis of migration, per- taining to their particular experiences of being recognised as migrant Others. Among the three students, similar challenges emerge in terms of their claims for belonging. One the one hand, the students do claim belonging to the Swedish social community. On the other hand, they are – as ‘migrants’ – repeatedly reminded of their non-belonging to this community. In various ways, they feel out of place. Although migration, in the narratives, is not played out one and the same way, but in various ways, engagement in adult education as a means of finding a job appear as the main orientation guiding the futures of the adult students, as being an important way of finding a future and claim one’s belonging to the Swedish social community.

Catching Up: The Labor Market Outcomes of New Immigrants in Sweden

2014

The considerable diversity among Sweden's immigrants reflects a humanitarian migration policy. Refugees have arrived in the country since the 1970s and 1980s, with their countries of origin shifting according to the ethnic and political conflicts of any given period. Sweden is also a longstanding magnet for labor migration from surrounding Scandinavia, and has attracted mobile EU citizens since its entry into the European Union in 1995 -- and especially following the EU enlargements of 2004 and 2007. Sweden's immigration flows continue to change today, as policy reforms in 2008 allowed employers to bring non-EU labor migrants to the country for the first time in decades. This report assesses how new immigrants to Sweden fare in the country's labor market. The report is part of a series of six case studies on labor market outcomes among immigrants to European Union countries.The report shows that employment rates during newcomers' initial years in Sweden are relativel...

Unemployment and earnings for second generation immigrants in Sweden. Ethnic background and parent composition

Journal of Population Economics, 2003

Studies of first generation immigrants often show that labour market outcomes differ greatly between different immigrant groups compared to the native population. This issue is also of high importance as regards the children of immigrants, born in the immigrant country. Previous studies have not been able to analyse the labour market outcomes for second-generation immigrants in the way done in this study. We are able to (i) identify several groups of secondgeneration immigrants with different ethnic backgrounds and (ii) identify the parent composition, i.e. whether one or both parents of the individual are foreign born. The results show that the labour market outcomes differ greatly between different groups of second generation immigrants compared to native-born Swedes. The pattern is similar to that in the parent generation. The outcome is more favourable if one parent is born in Sweden compared to having both parents foreign born. There is also a tendency that the outcome is more favourable if the mother is native born than if the father is.

Exploring Employability Constructions of Migrants in Sweden and Potential Consequences for Labour Market Entrance Recommendations

Social Sciences

In the flexible Swedish labour market, the concept of employability has grown important. Within a neoliberal framework, accountability for one’s possibility to successfully obtain or keep employment rests with the individual. In contrast, within a social welfare discourse the individual is offered care and support in order to gain employment. The present study combined intersectional and discourse analytical approaches with the understanding that individual employability is subjectively constructed in the exploration of labour market induction, employability constructions and categorizations in the discourse used by government agencies directly involved in the labour market integration of newly arrived migrants. Public documents comprising information on labour market entrance, employability and associated concepts such as competence building and career development were analysed. The employability constructions were often contradictory—placed at the crossroads of neoliberal and soci...