Immigrants from the New Member States and the Swedish welfare state

Abstract:

The report analyses the effects of free movement for workers from the new Member States to Sweden. The immigration is still small compared with total immigration to Sweden. The immigrants from EU10 are to a very high extent from Poland. Women constituted the majority of the immigrants in all the years of the period studied up to 2006. The immigration of men increased more from May 2004 on, so that more men than women came to Sweden from the ten member states in 2006 and 2007.

The EU10 immigrants who have work are doing well on the Swedish labour market. The new immigrants are only to a small extent receiving support from income transfer programmes. The new immigrants are overrepresented in agriculture and construction.