| 1. |
- Erlandsson, Anni, 1987-
(författare)
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Gender, Parenthood, Ethnicity and Discrimination in the Labor Market : Experimental Studies on Discrimination in Recruitment in Sweden
- 2022
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation uses experimental methods to study hiring discrimination based on gender, parenthood and ethnicity in the Swedish labor market. Also, the role of recruiter gender for gender and ethnic discrimination is studied. Three of the four empirical studies (Study I, Study II and Study IV), are based on field experiment data using a correspondence testing method. This involves fictitious job applications sent to announced jobs, and the employer responses to these. Signals of applicant characteristics such as gender, parenthood status, and ethnicity are randomly assigned to the job applications whereas qualifications are held constant (within occupations). Study III is based on a laboratory experiment in which (fictious) job candidates are evaluated.Study I does not show any evidence of discrimination based on gender or parenthood, or any combination of these, in the first step of the hiring process, neither in highly nor less qualified occupations. Study II shows that male job applicants are favored by male recruiters, especially in gender-balanced occupations.Study III shows a statistically significant gender bias in job applicant ratings in favor of female applicants in a laboratory setting. This is particularly the case for female evaluators. Moreover, Study III shows no motherhood penalty in the applicant ratings.Study IV presents evidence of ethnic discrimination against foreign-named job applicants by both male and female recruiters. Further, there is evidence of gendered ethnic discrimination, i.e., male applicants with foreign-sounding names receive considerably fewer positive responses than female applicants with foreign-sounding names. While female recruiters favor foreign-named female applicants over foreign-named male applicants, particularly in highly qualified occupations, male recruiters appear to prefer foreign-named females over foreign-named males in male-dominated occupations.To summarize, the findings from this dissertation provide little support for the notion of discrimination in recruitment as an important mechanism behind gender inequalities in the Swedish labor market. However, the results indicate that discrimination in the recruitment process contributes to the labor market inequality of ethnic minorities, and of ethnic minority men in particular. Moreover, the findings suggest that recruiter gender matters for the success of male and female job candidates, and in particular for foreign-named men and women, at least in some occupational contexts.
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| 2. |
- Weber, Rosa, 1991-
(författare)
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Borders and Barriers : Studies on Migration and Integration in the Nordic and Mexico-U.S. Settings
- 2020
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- International migration engages large numbers of people. Men, women and children break up from their homes and move to another country temporarily or permanently. Depending on the country of origin and the destination, this comes with varying degrees of uncertainties about where to settle, how much to invest in building a new life abroad and how to retain ties to the country of origin. In recent years, policies have become increasingly salient for migrants’ experiences. They impact entry possibilities and the ease of travelling back home. Increased policing of migrants can interfere in the building of a new life abroad and contribute to stress and apprehension felt among both migrants and their children. To some extent counteracting this, family and friends may provide newly arrived migrants with information on job opportunities and facilitate the transition into the new country.This dissertation analyses the links between migration and integration patterns and migrants’ ties to the home and destination country. It does this in two ultimately distinct settings when it comes to the borders and barriers that migrants face: the Nordic and Mexico-U.S. settings. Until recently, Swedish migration policy was among the most welcoming to migrants from different parts of the world. Migration within the Nordic countries, in particular, is characterised by open borders. By contrast, Mexico and the U.S. are separated by an increasingly militarised border and internal policing of migrants has risen dramatically. Consequently, these settings provide contrasting and interesting examples of the relationship between the policy context and migrants’ experiences.Study 1 shows that many moves are temporary and short term in the Nordic setting of free mobility. Still, the threshold to the first move is notably higher than for subsequent moves. Study 2 reveals that rising deportations of Mexican migrants in the U.S. are associated with a shift from savings brought home to the sending of remittances. Afraid of a sudden arrest or deportation, migrants maintain transnational ties by sending remittances back to Mexico rather than carrying savings across the border. Study 3 investigates the different roles that social contacts play for male and female migrants’ integration into the Swedish labour market. Whereas friends provide men with benefits in the labour market, women’s job search is often constrained by factors linked to having family in Sweden. Study 4 shows that the implementation of local level immigration enforcement in the U.S. has a negative impact on district level average educational achievement among Hispanic students. This indicates that integration and resulting ethnic achievement gaps are shaped by increased policing and surveillance of migrants.This dissertation reveals a series of complex relationships between migration, integration and policies. Family and kin influence migration decisions also when barriers to movement are low. In the new country, kin can assist migrants’ job search or slow it down when newly arrived migrants are expected to care for them. Policing of migrants makes it more difficult to return and may affect migrants’ abilities to invest in building a new life, as indicated by negative effects for educational outcomes among groups targeted by immigration enforcement. Taken together, these factors shape the experiences and life chances of both migrants and their children in the new country.
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| 3. |
- Beckley, Amber, 1981-
(författare)
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Foreign background and criminal offending among young males in Stockholm
- 2015
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This doctoral thesis considers how factors from the home country, the family, and the individual impact the risk for criminal offending among young males from a foreign background residing in Stockholm. I use Swedish register data to examine the risk for police registered suspicion of criminal offending. The introductory chapter presents an historical overview of immigration in Sweden, theories of criminal offending, and details about analysis of register data. It is followed by three empirical studies that consider unique risk factors for crime among children of immigrants while controlling for factors encountered within Sweden. The first study shows that young male children of immigrants do not seem to be inherently violent as a result of coming from a war-torn country. The second study indicates that it is not the age at immigration, but the family situation that seems to dictate criminal propensity. The final study suggests that threats of deportation and stricter immigration policies do not seem to deter criminality. The most interesting result was probably that high home country human development was a protective factor against crime. This is the first known work to uncover such a result. Future theoretical development may be best aimed at unpacking and empirically evaluating the human development index as a risk factor. Together, these three studies suggest that some previously unconsidered uniquely immigrant factors are related to risk for criminality.
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| 4. |
- Bengtsson, Petter, 1976-
(författare)
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Buyers and Sellers on the Stockholm Housing Market
- 2023
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Buying and selling housing is for most a very important event that can strongly affect their financial situation. At the same time homes are recognized as places with great importance above and beyond financial matters and in everyday talk and in the previous literature homes are described as safe-havens, status symbols, influencing networks of friends and acquaintances, canvasses for projecting identity, tied to gentrification, segregation and much more. Previous literature tends to separate and focus on either economic/financial aspects or more symbolic values in housing, and/or separate its analysis to either owners of homes or buyers of homes. This study bridges the restricted focus in the previous literature by analyzing both buying and selling housing from an economical sociological viewpoint. The market and case is buying and selling housing in the County of Stockholm and since often the same household appear on both sides of the market close in time, a switch-role activity, the notion of switching and how the two roles relate to one and the same actor is central to explain. The explanation provided is further warranted in that this type of market, understudied in all types of previous literature, is a type of market which, not at least via internet platforms, is growing in volume. By ethnographic work, interviews and observations, buyers and sellers of housing are studied and analyzed. The theoretical concept of modes is used to create an understanding and explanation of housing buyers’ and sellers’ actions. The three research questions; what buyers and sellers do, how they do it, and why they do it are tied to the mode apparatus. Buyers are found to be disperse as their mode displays are plenty and varied. Some buyers are committed and certain of what they want in the future home and what the right price is, while some are eager to learn and find out what a good housing deal is. Others display modes of dreaming of future homes, play shop or try to learn what the proper way to buy housing really is or should be. Sellers are found to be much more coherent as group and as one mode display. The relatively set way in which sellers are provided a script on what to do and how to do it make them remarkably conformist. Sellers are found to show great trust in the institutional practice of the housing market. The lack of personal and subjective displays of identity and taste stand out. Sellers are found to display a general mode of involution, where culture and style tends to be ever watered down. Comparing the two sides of the market, buying and selling housing are therefore understood as two very different activities housed under one roof. Many actors appear on both sides of the market, as both buyer and seller close in time, but what the actor subjectively value as buyer and what influence their mode display, is not relevant when switching to selling. What is won for the buyer in the sense of having a distinct subjective mode is lost in uncertainty about what is the best deal on a unit of housing. Sellers on the other hand have little ability to display any real image and identity in their home for sale. However, what is lost in not having a distinct subjective mode display is then won in the certainty that following the script will secure the best possible deal. The study’s results point towards the value of further empirical work on switch-role markets to provide an extended knowledge of what is found here.
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| 5. |
- Rosenqvist, Erik, 1983-
(författare)
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Social Influence and Educational Decisions : Studies on Peer Influence in Secondary Education
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis examines the role of peers when students’ educational decisions are formed. The thesis uses rich administrative data from Sweden, which provides opportunities to follow students over different transitions in their educational career and assess the role of peers in different educational situations. The thesis consists of one introductory chapter and four empirical studies. Study I examines how peers influence each other’s applications to upper secondary education through two different influence functions, where students both conform to their peers’ ambitious decisions and simultaneously can be discouraged from ambitious decisions by high-achieving peers. Study II builds on the findings from Study I and examines if students who conform to their peers’ educational ambitions and enroll in ambitious and demanding educations are more prone to leave such educations since their applications potentially were too myopic when influenced by their peers. Study III examines how students’ decisions to apply to gender typical and gender atypical upper secondary educations were affected by their peers. The study additionally examines if students enrolled in atypical educations are more likely to leave the education and if such decisions are mediated by the peer composition in their upper secondary education. Study IV examines how an admission reform to upper secondary education, which increased the sorting of students on achievements, affected application behavior to different tertiary education.
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| 6. |
- Hällsten, Martin, 1980-
(författare)
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Essays on Social Reproduction and Lifelong Learning
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis consists of four self-contained papers that deal with social reproduction and lifelong learning in Sweden and all use large-scale longitudinal data from public registers. The first paper analyses inequality by class origin in programme choice at university. It is found that individuals of working class origin choose programs of shorter duration with lower grade point requirements closer to their parents’ home compared to individuals of higher class origin. Children of the higher class instead prefer programs with higher expected earnings and avoid non-traditional institutions. This inequality leads to non-negligible differences in expected labour market outcomes further on. The second paper examines the wage gap between individuals of working and higher class origin, given education. By using an unusually detailed measure of education, the net wage gap between classes is found to be considerably smaller compared to standard specifications. The wage gap is found to be relatively small in the public sector, and also somewhat smaller in large compared to small private firms, suggesting that bureaucracy may act as a leveller. The third paper investigates the relation between economic inequality and the decision to take up studies at the tertiary level late in life. The results show the likelihood of a late entry to be especially high for individuals who are disadvantaged to a moderate extent in terms of current earnings rank and also had some unemployment experience. The fourth paper addresses life-long learning in tertiary education and its economic returns. Matching techniques are combined with panel data methods to account for non-random selection. The results reveal average positive returns of considerable magnitude on late degrees; between 10 to 20 percentiles in the earnings distribution. The largest effects are found in the lower parts of the earnings distribution.
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| 7. |
- Palm, Johanna, 1979-
(författare)
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There is power in a union : Trade union organization, union membership and union activity in Sweden
- 2017
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis investigates what factors affect union organization and, to some degree, union activity in the face of declining union density in the majority of Western countries. Union structures have been changing in recent decades, not only in terms of declining membership but also because women and white-collar workers are becoming a more stable part of the membership base, whereas previously highly organized groups, such as blue-collar workers, are in decline. The point of departure for this thesis is that union density changes must be understood on several different levels. Thus, we must investigate changing union density in light of changing institutional settings, changing labour market structures and changing norms and values on the individual level. The thesis consists of three empirical studies investigating union density changes and union activity in Sweden, and an introductory chapter that develops the theoretical and empirical (historical) background. The empirical studies investigate: (1) whether and how the influence of various aspects of class and ideology on union organization have changed over time, (2) the effect of structural change on union density increase and decline, and(3) what factors influence different attitudes towards industrial action among Swedish employees. Results show that union density decline in Sweden since the mid-1990s cannot be explained by any forceful shifts in the labour market structure or individuals’ opinions and/or attitudes related to trade unions to any significant degree. Union density decline in Sweden is of a general nature. However, an increasing divergence in union density across various categories of employees, including, e.g., private-sector vs. public-sector employees, young vs. older employees, employees of foreign origin vs. employees of Swedish origin, and the atypically employed vs. employees with standardized employment, is observed. Moreover, previously strong predictors of union membership, including class identity, ideology, sector of employment and type of employment contract, are in decline, but they still influence union organization and attitudes towards industrial action.
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| 8. |
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