Lars-Erik Borgegård

Housing Careers: Immigrants in Local Swedish Housing Markets

Immigration to Sweden has changed character between the 1960s and today. Early immigration occurred as a response to labour market need whereas immigrants arriving during the last decade have had difficulties entering the labour market. The aim of this study is to analyse the housing careers of different immigrant groups within different local housing markets. The housing careers of immigrant groups are then compared and related to the housing career of the total population. Earlier studies have shown that the year of immigration is of importance for the type of housing career made as well as the cultural distance between the immigrant group and the Swedish population. The immigrants included in this study have arrived from Finland, ex-Yugoslavia, Chile, Africa, Iran and Turkey, representing the three different phases of immigration to Sweden. The analyses here show that both the structure of the local housing market and time spent in Sweden are important to the housing careers of immigrants.

Changing welfare states and social housing: Consequences for spatial segregation ‐ reviewed

Most western countries have reached a peak of welfare and are facing cuts to their welfare programmes. Housing policies and the housing market are similarly going through changes with regard to ownership, rent levels and market prices. The process can be characterised in terms of privatisation, deregulation and a residualisation of the social housing sector. So far changes in Sweden have been slow. To understand the process of change a review of international studies involving Denmark, Finland, Germany (former West Germany), Great Britain, the Netherlands, Canada and Australia has been carried out. All countries have adopted a welfare state concept for their development after 1945. Since the 1970s there has been a change in attitude towards social housing. This study shows that the social housing sector seems to become smaller and/or more marginalised leading to an increase in spatial segregation and a polarisation between various socio‐economic groups in society. When the sector becomes smaller the hous...