Mittuniversitetet

The employment rate differences between those who are foreign born and those whoare born in Sweden are as high as 15,3 percent in average, which is the largestdifference amongst the member states. There are also big variations amongst the 290Swedish municipalities, with differences ranging from 10,7 percent in Gällivarekommun and 49,3 percent in Ovanåker kommun.The purpose of this study is to contribute to previous studies on the integration ofimmigrants on the Swedish labour market, by exploring the explanations for thesevariations. The main focus of this study is to explore how the integration policies ofthe local municipalities affect immigrant's successes on the Swedish labour marketand their opportunities for employment.Within the limits of a statistical study and through multivariate regressionanalysis, I explore a number of potential factors that could affect the employmentrates of foreign born citizens. The empirical findings are ambiguous, with only partialsupport for two out of three hypotheses, and no support for the third, this studyshows little promise for the purpose of local integration policies for the integration ofimmigrants on the Swedish labour market.