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This talk presents an analysis of multidimensional segregation in Stockholm, part of the recently completed international project on Cities and Migration, forthcoming in Ethnic and Racial Studies Special Issue on Urbanization and Migration in Three Continents. Drawing on official statistics and existing empirical research, spatial and socio-economic segregation are found to be increasingly tied to ethnicity, in a global city largely divided between affluent inner-city and marginalized peripheral boroughs. The analysis finds that migration flows’ impact on Stockholm’s asymmetric development must be understood in a historical perspective, as particular interactions between structural constraints and individual factors, generated by ongoing processes of residential segregation and labor market segmentation. Coinciding with Sweden’s shift towards refugee and family dependent immigration, these processes are further traced to public policies driving market liberalization and financialization of housing, and post-industrial labor market bifurcation. Reversal of the city’s pronounced segregation, where cumulative interactions of segmentation processes have caused a vicious circle of downward assimilation for non-labor migrants, constitutes a formidable task Swedish Governments have so far failed to properly address.
- Effron Center for the Study of America
- Program in American Studies