Sweden risks losing top position in international integration index

“The changes made by the coalition parties, with stricter family reunification and more difficult permanent residence permits and citizenship, mean that Sweden will have fallen significantly in the next measurement,” says Henrik Emilsson, a researcher at Malmö University.

Sweden has long been a role model for those who believe that rights and opportunities are the basis for a successful integration policy, but we are no longer that.

Henrik Emilsson

For the sixth consecutive time, Sweden is among the countries with the best integration policies in the international Migrant Integration Policy Index (Mipex) ranking, which compares integration policies within the EU and a number of non-EU countries. The index measures areas such as the labour market, education, political participation, family reunification, citizenship, and anti-discrimination.

"In Sweden, we have had an integration policy based on equal rights since the 1960s, and that is what is having an impact here. If you come here as an immigrant, you have largely the same rights as other residents, as long as you have a residence permit. And that has been quite unique from an international perspective," says Emilsson, who researches Swedish migration and integration policy at Malmö University.

In the recently published survey, Sweden ranks first with 86 out of 100 points, just ahead of Finland and Portugal, and far ahead of countries such as Denmark with 49 points. The new study is not a global comparison but compares the situation in the 27 EU countries, and the measurements apply to 2023 or 2024.

For Sweden, the information is taken from 2023. Had it been done this year, it would most likely have looked different, according to Emilsson. He believes that the stricter rules imposed by the parties in power regarding permanent residence permits, citizenship and family reunification will affect the ranking in the future.

"Sweden has long been a role model for those who believe that rights and opportunities are the basis for a successful integration policy, but we are no longer that. The next time the survey is conducted, we will definitely not be at the top. We will probably end up around tenth to fifteenth place.

He emphasises that it is important to remember that Mipex measures rights and access to services. It does not measure the results of policy. Sweden, for example, is very good at labour market integration, but at the same time has one of the largest gaps between native-born and foreign-born people in the labour market in Europe.

“We don't have the best results in this area, which is because we have taken in far more refugees than other countries. But if we look only at the refugee group, we have a higher proportion in work than in our neighbouring countries. Nor have we designed our migration policy to make money. Given the circumstances, we have still done a good job,” says Emilsson.