Income, wealth and equal opportunities in Sweden

Jon Pareliussen, Christophe André, Hugo Bourrousse and Vincent Koen (vincent.koen@oecd.org)
Additional contact information
Jon Pareliussen: OECD
Hugo Bourrousse: OECD

No 1394, OECD Economics Department Working Papers from OECD Publishing

Abstract: Sweden is an egalitarian society in international comparison, and has managed to combine equity with economic efficiency. Rapidly rising inequality and relative poverty from a historical low in the 1980s partly stem from ageing, changing family structures and migration. Living standards increased for all groups, but social benefits rose less than earned income. Incomes of newly-arrived immigrants and single mothers trailed the median. Bottlenecks in the migrant settlement process are costly to migrants and society, and high entry wages further slow integration. Spatial segregation leads to school segregation and potentially reduced social mobility for the least endowed, and rental regulations reduce the scope for settling where job opportunities are the best. Fast-growing capital incomes, likely linked to increasing wealth concentration and income shifting, increased inequality. Low intergenerational income mobility in the very top of the income distribution is a concern. Social benefits should be uprated more systematically and regressive housing-related taxation reformed to strengthen redistribution. Migrant settlement and integration need to be better coordinated and adapted to individual starting points. The number of wage subsidies and their administrative complexity should be reduced to ease labour market entry. Dysfunctional rental regulations should be reformed to increase mobility and limit spatial segregation. This working paper relates to the 2017 OECD Economic Survey of Sweden (www.oecd.org/eco/surveys/economic-survey-sweden.htm).

Keywords: housing; Income; inequality; migration; redistribution; rent control; skills; wealth (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D31 F22 H23 H55 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-06-23
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur and nep-pbe
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1787/e900be20-en (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oec:ecoaaa:1394-en

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in OECD Economics Department Working Papers from OECD Publishing Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by (eco.contact@oecd.org).