How divided is Sweden?

Statistics Sweden divides the country into just over 3,000 regional statistical areas, RegSO, with 700 to 20,000 residents each. Each area gets an index from three measures: the share with low economic standard, the share with at most compulsory schooling, and the share receiving social assistance or in long-term unemployment. The index gives five area types. The table shows the average for those living in each type, weighted by population.

Low economic standard and education are part of the index itself, so their differences follow from how the types are built. Employment, turnout and sickness rate are not part of it, and they differ anyway. Half the residents of area type 1 were born abroad, against one in nine in type 5. The measures say what the areas look like, not why: people in an area with major challenges have often moved there on a low income, and those who find work often move away.

Latest year in Statistics Sweden's tables per RegSO: area type and population 2024, employment 2024, income and sickness rate 2023, turnout in the 2022 general election. Income is the median disposable income in price base amounts; one price base amount was 57,300 kronor in 2023. The sickness rate is days of sickness benefit, sickness and activity compensation and rehabilitation benefit per person per year. Low economic standard means below 60 % of the national median, a relative measure. The types are recalculated every year, so an area can change type. Sources: Statistics Sweden, socioeconomic area classification (TAB6586, TAB6685) and integration statistics per RegSO (TAB6694, TAB5748, TAB5750, TAB5751, TAB6572). Incomes per municipality are on Wealth and the labour market entry of the foreign born on Migration.

Since most children go to a school near home, schools follow housing. The National Agency for Education found that the differences in results between schools nearly doubled 2000–2016, mostly because pupils of different backgrounds increasingly attend different schools. A study of the school choice reform of the 1990s found that school segregation rose more in municipalities where independent schools grew more, but that it mostly followed from rising residential segregation.

Sources: National Agency for Education (2018), report 467; Böhlmark, Holmlund and Lindahl (2016), Journal of Population Economics. Grades per school and municipality and more research on school choice are on Schools.

Few studies show that a measure has reduced residential segregation as a whole. The strongest studies instead measure what it means for the individual where they live, and there the results point in different directions.

1. Does moving to a better-off area help?

   For children, yes. In the American Moving to Opportunity experiment, housing vouchers were allocated by lottery to families in high-poverty areas. Children who moved to a lower-poverty area before age 13 earned considerably more as adults and more often went to college. For those who moved as teenagers and for the adults, no effect on income was seen.

   Chetty, Hendren and Katz (2016), American Economic Review.

2. Is it bad to live among compatriots?

   Not necessarily. Between 1985 and 1994 Sweden placed refugees in municipalities without their own choice, which makes it possible to compare similar people. Those who ended up in an area with many from the same country earned more after a few years, above all those with little education. How much the compatriots in the area themselves worked mattered.

   Edin, Fredriksson and Åslund (2003), Quarterly Journal of Economics.

3. Does the distance to jobs matter?

   Yes. Using the same placement of refugees, a study found that those placed where more jobs were within reach were more often in work several years later.

   Åslund, Östh and Zenou (2010), Journal of Economic Geography.

Boverket follows segregation in the segregation barometer and the Delegation against Segregation, Delmos, was an agency 2018–2024 whose tasks now lie with Boverket. Building and the housing market are on Housing.

In June 2026 the Riksdag passed a new law on the settlement of certain newly arrived immigrants. The distribution between municipalities is to take account of the housing market and of areas with extensive exclusion, and the newly arrived get a right to housing for 36 months. The law passed by 198 votes to 106; 42 abstained. The table summarises where the parties stood.

The law came in government bill 2025/26:215, Temporary housing for certain newly arrived immigrants, and was handled in the Committee on the Labour Market's report 2025/26:AU14. Votes per party on 15 June 2026: M, SD, KD, L and C yes, S no, V and MP abstained. M, KD, L and C have no reservations. Migration policy in general is on Migration.

• Source: SCB, socioeconomic area classification. Index and area type per RegSO 2011–2024 and population as the weight.
• Source: SCB, integration statistics per RegSO. Employment, voter turnout, sickness rate, income and country of birth.
• Source: Police, the situation reports on vulnerable areas 2015–2025, linked on Organised crime.
• Source: Riksdag open data. Bill, committee report, reservations and vote.
• Not included: segregation between schools per municipality, which is on School, and Boverket's segregation barometer, whose data is not yet free to reuse here.

The series come from Statistics Sweden. Migration is on Migration, housing on Housing, schools on Schools, crime on Crime and benefits on Where the benefits go.