Urban Fransson

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.

Of Marriages and Mortgages: The Second Demographic Transition and the Relationship between Marriage and Homeownership in Sweden

Past research has established a positive relationship between transitions to marriage and transitions into ownership. This paper explores how this relationship is changing by following a population as it advances through the Second Demographic Transition. Following a rational choice model for tenure decisions, it is hypothesized that the Second Demographic Transition is likely to affect the relationship between partnership and tenure in two ways. First, the preferences for ownership unique to marriage are likely to decline. Second, the importance of an extra income, especially for men, is likely to increase. Evidence is found supporting both these assertions for the population of Gävle, Sweden, between 1975 and 1990.

On distance and the spatial dimension in the definition of internal migration

Migration is commonly defined by a temporal and a spatial dimension. It is generally agreed that these dimensions are problematic and could seriously distort understanding of migration, but data constraints have effectively obstructed further insights. This article focuses on the spatial dimension where migration is typically defined as movement across administrative borders. Borders usually serve as proxies for migration distance but the validity of such proxies is largely unknown, posing a considerable challenge to migration research. Using data for all internal migrants in Sweden, the only known country where migration distances are available in sufficient detail, we present the first accurate description of actual migration distances and investigate the relationship between actual migration distances and migration-defining boundaries. More specifically, we examine how the volumes of migration and the characteristics of migrants change when migration distances vary and when different types of migration-defining boundaries are employed. The findings show that notable shares of short-distance migrants are included almost regardless of which migration-defining boundary is employed, but migrant differentials are less affected than might be expected.

Housing tenure and early retirement for health reasons in Sweden

Aims: To assess the association between housing tenure and early retirement for health reasons in Sweden with a view to psychosocial vs. material values of home ownership. Methods: The data come from linked registers that cover all people resident in Sweden during 1990—2000. The study population consists of 449,233 people aged 40—63 years in 1997. Of these, 19,350 retired early for health reasons in 1998—99. The remaining 429,883 continued their employment without extended sick leave or income decline. None moved during 1990—2000. We calculated the odds of early retirement for four forms of juridical relationship to ones housing (private owner; part owner in a cooperative; private rental; rental from a public housing company), for men and women separately, controlling for age, education, employment income, household disposable income, region, foreign birth, and housing type. Results: Men in cooperative ownership had lower odds of early retirement than those in the three other tenure forms, for which the odds were similar. Among women, public and private renters had similar odds of early retirement, which were higher than those of women in private or cooperative ownership. For both genders, inclusion of housing type in the model after housing tenure explained little additional variance. Conclusions: The odds of early retirement for health reasons varied across different housing tenure forms in Sweden in 1998— 99. The pattern of associations differed as a function of gender. Home ownership appears to involve health resources independent of basic sociophysical factors captured with differences in housing type.

Leisure home ownership and early death: a longitudinal study in Sweden.

People who perform paid work may benefit from psychological restoration afforded by a leisure home and its natural surroundings. This may hinder the development of some forms of life-threatening illness. Using longitudinal register data for 108,114 employed Swedes, we assessed the prospective association between leisure home ownership and death before age 65. Among men, but not among women, leisure home owners had lower odds of early death, after adjustment for sociodemographic and residential characteristics (OR=0.875, 95% CI=0.702-0.980). The results bear on natural environments as health resources, inform debate on urban densification, and broaden the discussion of residence and health.

Chapter 11 The Demand for Old Age Care

In Sweden, responsibility for the public care of the frail elderly rests with three authorities acting at different levels. At national level, the Riksdag and the Government realize policy goals through legislation and financial control measures. At regional level, 18 county councils and two regions are responsible for the provision of health and medical care. At local level, Swedens 290 municipalities have a statutory duty to meet the social service and housing needs of the elderly. Swedens municipalities and county council have a high level of autonomy by international standards. Activities in caring services are ultimately controlled by politicians appointed to policy-making assemblies in municipalities and county councils through general elections. The decentralization of responsibility for elderly care makes it possible for local and regional conditions to be taken into account when policies for the elderly are formulated. The national authorities – the National Board of Health and Welfare and the 20 county/region administrative boards – are responsible for supervision, follow-up, and evaluation of municipal and county council caring services.

Chapter 7 Geographical Mobility and Tenure Choice

Concerning migration on a national level, two phenomena emerge: people migrating from one region to another and people moving from the countryside to the cities. The geographical shift of the population between regions in a country is a slow process. In Sweden, only a few percent of the population migrate yearly. Nevertheless, migration has caused and still causes considerable redistribution of the population toward the metropolitan regions in Sweden. This section will emphasize general trends in population concentration through urbanization and migration in Sweden and compare these trends with changes in other countries.