Spatializing immigrant labour integration in Sweden, 2010 – 2019 : An exploratory analysis

Sammanfattning

Participation and equality in the labour market is a crucial aspect of integration. It protects the immigrant against poverty and aids in ensuring a better quality of life (OECD, 2025-a). Research on the labour integration of Sweden’s immigrants becomes vital firstly for humanitarian reasons – the migrant’s wellbeing and equality with their peers. Secondly, they have become a crucial part of the living, working and cohesion of the Swedish system and society (Portes & Vickstrom, 2011; Wahengbam, 2026). At the same time, understanding labour integration has often missed a sense of space and scale, often assuming a homogenous relationship.This study employs spatial econometric modelling and descriptive analytics on municipal level data for a spatialized understanding of immigrant’s average income relative to the native Swedish population. Econometric regression analysis shows that the observed municipal income gap has heterogenous relations to the immigrant’s origins, with highly educated Europeans indicating a more comparative income advantage. Further, though the relationship between immigration to native wage is not estimated, findings suggest that immigration rich periods in municipalities generally have a reduced average native-immigrant wage gap irrespective of gender or education.