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According to the policy-making literature, external shocks are one of the mostimportant pre-requisites for major policy changes. This article investigates how therefugee crisis affected Swedish political parties' asylum and family migration policypreferences. The results indicate that the refugee crisis contributed to the breakingup of a long-established policy paradigm of openness and equal rights previouslyshared by most parties in parliament. A more fragmented party system has emergedwhere a new paradigm of controlling numbers has also found strong supportoutside the anti-immigration party the Sweden Democrats.

AbstractThis article studies the outcomes of the 2008 labour‐migration policy change in Sweden, when most state control was abolished and an employer‐led selection was introduced. The main goal was to increase labour migration from third countries to occupational sectors experiencing labour shortages. The article compares the volume, composition and labour‐market status of labour migrants who arrived before the change in the law with those who arrived after. Labour migrants from EU countries are used as a control group to assess any eventual influence from non‐migration policy determinants. The main outcome of the policy change is that non‐EU labour migration increased – an effect entirely due to the rise in labour migration to surplus occupations. Changes in the composition of the labour migrants explains why those who came after the law change have, on average, a worse labour market position.

Abstract There is a growing interest in the research community in the local governance of migration and integration. Studies indicate a local turn in integration policies, with local governments becoming important integration policy actors. Unlike most research, this study of recent developments in the policies for migrant newcomers in Denmark and Sweden observes a national turn in local integration policy. Despite their different integration policies, the central governments of both countries have increased their control and influence at the local level and thereby made it more difficult for local governments to formulate their own integration policies. This study highlights the need to complement earlier research based on frame analysis with an analytical framework that takes central government steering and the uneven power relationship between the levels of government into account.

In the midst of the ongoing financial crisis in 2008, the Swedish government decided to liberalize the labour migration policy from third countries. After several decades of having a restrictive system, the country now has one of the most open labour migration systems in the world. In this paper I review the outcome of the policy and offer some tentative explanations about why we have seen this specific outcome in the Swedish case. The result is an increase of labour migration, but it is to a large part due to immigration to sectors with a surplus of workers. The labour migrants can roughly be divided into three major categories: those moving to skilled jobs, low skilled jobs and seasonal workers in the berry picking industry. The demand driven system has produced a specific labour migration pattern which is better explained by employer's access to transnational networks than actual demand for labour. Many sectors with a large surplus of native workers have experienced major inflows while employers in other sectors with labour shortages don´t recruit from third countries. The policy outcome also highlights the need to analyse and explain different categories of labour migration separately as they are a result of different driving forces.

In 2008, the Swedish government liberalised the labour migration policy to a demand driven model without labour market tests. This article analyses the effects of the policy change on the labour migration inflow. The migrants consist of three major categories including those moving to: skilled jobs as computer specialists and engineers, low-skilled jobs in the private service sector and seasonal work in the berry picking industry. The article shows that the new model has produced a labour migration inflow that is better explained by the access of employers and migrants to transnational networks rather than actual demand for labour

In this article, we investigate local level reactions to the top-down state steering for the housing of refugees in Sweden. We especially reflect on events after the increased refugee reception in Sweden in 2015 and the introduction of a Settlement Act in 2016 which made it mandatory for municipalities to receive a specific number of refugees and organise accommodation. This has resulted in a wide array of housing situations for refugees concerning standard, costs and temporary solutions. A multi-level governance framework from on central government steering perspective is applied. We argue that the modified legislation can be understood as a change in governance throughout the years - from persuasion to economic incentives and, finally, to coercive methods. Sweden is a country that has distinguished itself as one refraining from particularity and continuing to work towards equality between newcomers and citizens. In relation to recent legal and political developments, we identify a change - a paradoxical change, as governance for the more-equal reception of refugees in Sweden seems to lead to increased inequalities for refugees on the local level.

This thematic paper deals with integration policies concerning persons who aregranted international protection in EU Member States. It acknowledges that there are two general trends in integration policies - a civic turn and a local turn. The civic turn implies more integration requirements for migrants, decided upon by the state, that have an impact on the legal status of migrant newcomers. On the other hand, the local turn implies less national involvement with cities instead handling more of the integration policies, including funding and policy measures. The paper then describes four different models for the integration of beneficiaries of international protection: a national government-led model, a project based/multilevel governance model, a laissez-faire model, and a NGO-led model.

In 2008, Sweden changed its labour-migration policy in order to facilitate more labour migration from countries outside the EU. The unique design of the new law meant abandoning most state ambitions to shape labour migration. Under the new regulation, there are no labour-market tests or any consideration of the level of human capital. Instead, policy-makers trusted employers to select workers. We adopt a difference-in-differences approach and apply a series of OLS regressions on register data to assess the effects of the policy change on non-EU labour migrants' labour-market outcomes, as measured by income. The effects of the policy change are substantial. Non-EU labour migration increased and its composition changed after the reform, resulting in a significant decrease in mean incomes. The regression analysis shows that, despite the favourable economic cycle during the post-reform period, moving to Sweden as a third-country labour migrant following the 2008 labour-migration reform had a negative effect on the migrants' annual income. However, this effect became marginal after controlling for occupational level. We conclude that changes in their occupational composition were the main drivers of the income drop for non-EU labour migrants. In sum, the new non-selective labour-migration policy lowered labour migrants' mean income by opening the door to unskilled labour.

Based on 41 semi-structured interviews with young Latvians and Romanians in Malmö, Sweden, this article explores why Europeans from new European Union (EU) member states want to move to, and stay in, Sweden despite economic difficulties and underemployment. Six main factors for explaining mobility patterns are highlighted: free university education, romantic relationships, cosmopolitan lifestyle, presence of English language, idealisation of Sweden and work–life balance. We read these factors as ideas and aspirations of well-being in the 'imagined space' of Sweden. The findings illustrate that many young migrants do not chose to move to Sweden for short-term economic opportunities, but rather to experience a different lifestyle. In most cases, these expectations are met, although over time.

Abstract
In 2008, Sweden changed its labour-migration policy to facilitate more labour migration from countries outside the EU. Most state ambitions to shape labour migration, including practices such as the use of labour-market tests and the assessment of migrants' human capital, were abandoned and the responsibility to select migrants was transferred to employers. We use Swedish register data and adopt a difference-in-differences approach to assess the effects of the policy change on labour migrants' labour income, in comparison to non-EU migrants who moved to Sweden for reasons other than work. The effects of the policy change are substantial. Labour migration from outside the EU increased and its composition changed after the reform, resulting in a significant decrease in mean income. We conclude that changes in their occupational composition were the main drivers of the income drop for labour migrants. In sum, the new non-selective labour-migration policy lowered labour migrants' mean income by opening the door to unskilled labour.