Grete Brochmann

International Migration, Immobility and Development: Multidisciplinary Perspectives

Contributors Ishtiaq Ahmed, Associate Professor in Political Science, University of Stockholm, Sweden Gunilla Bjern, Associate Professor in Social Anthropology, University of Stockholm, Sweden Grete Brochmann, Research Director at the Institute for Social Research, Oslo, Norway Thomas Faist, Senior Researcher in Social Policy, University of Bremen, Germany Peter A. Fischer, Senior Researcher at the Institute for Economic Policy Research, Bundeswehr University, Hamburg, Germany Tomas Hammar, Professor and Director of the Centre for International Migration and Ethnic Relations, University of Stockholm, Sweden Kenneth Hermele, economist Gunnar Malmberg, Associate Professor in Geography, Umea University, Sweden Reiner Martin, Researcher at the Institute for Economic Policy Research, Bundeswehr University, Hamburg, Germany Thomas Straubhaar, Professor of Economics, Bundeswehr University, Hamburg, Germany Kristof Tamas, Political Scientist and Researcher at Ceifo, University of Stockholm, Sweden

Immigration policy and the Scandinavian welfare state, 1945-2010

List of figures Preface List of Abbreviations Notes on the Contributors Welfare State, Nation and Immigration G.Brochmann & A.Hagelund Sweden: The Flagship of Multiculturalism K.Borevi Denmark a National Welfare State Meets the World H.Vad Jonsson & K.Petersen Norway: The Land of the Golden G.Brochmann & A.Hagelund Comparison: A Model with Three Exceptions? G.Brochmann & A.Hagelund Bibliography Index

Migrants in the Scandinavian Welfare State

Migrants in the Scandinavian Welfare State During the 1990s and more so after the turn of the century, the authorities and the public in Scandinavia have become increasingly concerned about the pressure on welfare inflicted by the immigration of people with low skill levels from countries in the South. A large proportion of these newcomers have proven difficult to integrate in the Scandinavian labour market, which is characterised by high demands for skills and a compressed wage structure that makes low-skilled labour comparatively expensive. The universalistic welfare approach, implying a generous inclusion of legal newcomers from day one, in combination with the highly regulated and knowledge-intensive labour market has made the three states, Denmark, Norway and Sweden, particularly exposed to disincentive challenges as concerns the absorption of immigrants in gainful work. This article discusses the current development in the immigration/welfare nexus in the Scandinavian region.

Middle East avenue : female migration from Sri Lanka to the Gulf

A sociological analysis of Sri Lankas large-scale exportation of its poorest women to serve as housemaids in Arab homes. Considering the household, the village, and Sri Lanka in the world economy, the book probes the causes of this traffic and its effects on the economy and on gender relations.

Citizenship policies and ideas of nationhood in Scandinavia

This article analyzes the recent changes in naturalization policies in three Nordic countries, Norway, Denmark and Sweden. Considering the homogeneity of the region in terms of culture, social structure and polity, the discrepancy in current citizenship regulation is remarkable. Similar problem definitions have generated diametrical opposite solutions. This is even more striking as the three countries, hailing on perceived ideas of common interests and various experiences of shared rule in different political constellations for the best part of the last 500 years, also cooperated closely in forging their national citizenship legislation from the 1880s up till 1979. The article gives perspective to this novel variation, analyzing the interplay between aims and means in the naturalization policies. Basic questions like citizenship rights, the social and cultural cohesion of the nation state, national ideology and questions of identity will be addressed.

Innvandringens velferdspolitiske konsekvenser : Nordisk kunnskapsstatus

Samfunnsforskningen i Norden har i veldig liten grad tematisert koplingen mellom velferdsstat og utviklingen av flerkulturelle samfunn. Dette er pa mange mater bemerkelsesverdig, gitt de ...

Multiculturalism or Assimilation? The Norwegian Welfare State Approach

Before the turn of the twenty-first century, the Norwegian government concluded in a White Paper that ‘Norway had become a multicultural society.’1 Ironically, this came in tandem with this statement: ‘Norway always has been a multicultural society.’ As this White Paper reflected a yearning to genuinely develop such a society, the authorities managed to communicate both descriptive and normative features. More than a decade later, we could probably add that Norway has never been a multicultural state, nor has it ever wanted to be.

Welfare State, Nation and Immigration

‘Scandinavia’s holiest cow’ is what the welfare state was called by the Danish Weekendavisen in April 2007: ‘Islam has sharia. Denmark has the welfare state. It is not something that can be discussed among believers.’ 1 Scandinavia is the area where trust in political institutions and the role of the state is greatest in the world. Political actors in all three countries now compete for the honour of having created and developed the welfare state. But the writer choosing to compare Denmark’s relation to the welfare state with Islam says something about the upheavals that have taken place in Danish — and Norwegian and Swedish — society over recent decades. Considerable sections of the populations of the Scandinavian countries now have an immigrant background. The countries have become multicultural and multireligious. Social inequality has acquired a new dimension: ethnicity and immigrant background. It is here, in the meeting between two, now central, societal functions — the welfare state and immigration — that the main focus of this book and this research project lies.

Comparison: A Model with Three Exceptions?

It took 100 years to create the collectivist culture of the welfare state, historian Anne Lise Seip writes, with reference to Norwegian welfare development.1 In all three Scandinavian countries, the welfare state framework emerged during a long process that really took off after World War II. The new security system was based on a positive concept of freedom linked to public responsibility. Security allowed individual freedom to develop, and it was basically this interaction between freedom and security that motivated the collective renunciations, thereby initiating the development of social integration via the allocation of rights. ‘Freedom is greatest where the state rules’, claimed Lars Moen, Minister of Education in Norway from 1948 to 1953.2 Much of the stock of ideas in the post-WWII welfare states was inspired by the ‘productive social policy’ concept of Gunnar and Alva Myrdal. The security system, and thus the social expenditure, was regarded as an investment in people and their productivity: what created security also created growth.3

Norway: The Land of the Golden Mean

Differences between Norwegians and immigrants did not initially preoccupy the founders of the welfare state. In the post-WWII period, the immigrant proportion of the population was extremely small, and, with the exception of returning Norwegian–Americans and a few scattered refugees from eastern and central Europe, practically no one came to Norway from outside northern Europe. In 1967, 400 employed inhabitants from Africa and Asia were registered for the entire country.1