Housing for Refugees in Sweden: Top-Down Governance and its Local Reactions

Henrik Emilsson () and Klara Öberg ()
Additional contact information
Henrik Emilsson: Malmö University
Klara Öberg: Halmstad University

Journal of International Migration and Integration, 2022, vol. 23, issue 2, No 11, 613-631

Abstract: Abstract In this article, we investigate local level reactions to the top-down state steering for the housing of refugees in Sweden. We especially reflect on events after the increased refugee reception in Sweden in 2015 and the introduction of a Settlement Act in 2016 which made it mandatory for municipalities to receive a specific number of refugees and organise accommodation. This has resulted in a wide array of housing situations for refugees concerning standard, costs and temporary solutions. A multi-level governance framework from on central government steering perspective is applied. We argue that the modified legislation can be understood as a change in governance throughout the years — from persuasion to economic incentives and, finally, to coercive methods. Sweden is a country that has distinguished itself as one refraining from particularity and continuing to work towards equality between newcomers and citizens. In relation to recent legal and political developments, we identify a change — a paradoxical change, as governance for the more-equal reception of refugees in Sweden seems to lead to increased inequalities for refugees on the local level.

Keywords: Housing; Refugees; Settlement act; Multi-level governance; Local level (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s12134-021-00864-8 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:spr:joimai:v:23:y:2022:i:2:d:10.1007_s12134-021-00864-8

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.springer ... tudies/journal/12134

DOI: 10.1007/s12134-021-00864-8

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of International Migration and Integration is currently edited by Lori Wilkinson

More articles in Journal of International Migration and Integration from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().