For a few decades, Sweden has been a high-immigration country. Integration is a fundamental issue for Sweden’s future, but the discussion is too often characterized by political controversies and ideological deadlock. At the same time, knowledge of how integration unfolds on the ground, especially among youth of immigrant background—who make up one-fourth of young people in Sweden—is often rudimentary. This talk – based on new findings from a recent book and a government-commissioned report – provides a broad factual basis about integration among youth and young adults in Sweden. It draws on administrative data about the Swedish population and detailed survey data that follow 5,000 young people through their teenage years into early adulthood, allowing them to describe their lives and living conditions in terms of school, leisure time, attitudes, future plans, and much more. I analyze integration as a multidimensional phenomenon, covering dimensions such as education, employment, economic resources and family formation as well as religiosity, attitudes, and well-being.

Carina Mood is a professor at SOFI. Her research interests include integration, poverty, inequality, intergenerational transmission of advantage, and the welfare and well-being of children and youth, and she is part of the Level-of-living team at SOFI.

She currently heads the FORTE-funded research program Interlocking inequalities: A multidimensional perspective on inequality in contemporary Sweden (MINQ), the VR-funded research project Intergenerational mobility: Shifting the focus, and the NORDFORSK-funded project IntegrateYouth. 

Carina Mood is also affilated to the Institute for Futures Studies and is active in the international CILS4EU project.