Linking Integration and Housing Career: A Longitudinal Analysis of Immigrant Groups in Sweden

Abstract

This study investigates the extent to which immigrant groups are integrated in the Stockholm region through an analysis of their housing careers. Housing conditions are linked to many important life course events, as well as to the resources and preferences of each individual family. Housing conditions influence integration, but factors related to integration can also be a cause of housing conditions. In the study, we take a truly longitudinal approach to housing careers by exploring differences in the timing of career-related events between several immigrant groups and native Swedes. The objective of the study is to explore whether the housing careers of immigrant groups follow family and work careers in a similar way as the native population. The data are derived from a longitudinal individual-level register-based data-set maintained by Statistics Sweden. The analysis is carried out by way of survival analysis. Our results confirm that there are substantial ethnic differences in housing careers that cannot be attributed to family composition or career. Our results also highlight three important factors that reduce the differences between native Swedes and immigrants groups in the tendency to enter homeownership: university degree, type of municipality and duration of stay in Sweden.

Keywords::

• Life course
• homeownership
• integration
• housing career
• Sweden

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank three anonymous referees and the editor for helpful comments. We also thank Roger Andersson, Jon Ivar Elstad, Viggo Nordvik, and Terje Wessel for comments on earlier draft of the article. The research was supported by NORFACE, which is a partnership between fifteen research councils in Europe.

Notes

^1. This functional classification of municipalities is made by the Swedish Association of Local Authorities.

^2. The price-indexed basic amount is calculated based on yearly changes in the general price level in Sweden. Values vary between 36 200 SEK in 1996 and 36 600 SEK in 2000.