A neglected dimension of housing policy is how municipalities use it as a gatekeeping mechanism to exclude vulnerable groups and thereby control their territory. To examine this topic, we apply a systematic review that draws on the international academic literature and utilizes three bibliometric analyses. First, statistical analysis reveals the field's growth and how it is characterized by publications often combining an impressive set of data and methods. Second, the material is explored through network analysis, emphasizing how a few important journals lead the distribution of knowledge. Finally, a thematic analysis highlights consistency in the detrimental effects of exclusionary policies across different contexts. A distinction between planned excluding practices and policies with such unintended effects are also evident. The analysis underscores the conflict between individual responsibilities and societal obligations, where current policies tend to place substantial burdens on the individual. 

This study examines how two housing policy options in Sweden, namely government-assigned accommodation and self-selected housing, affect refugees’ housing conditions, employment status, and income. Drawing on migrant network theory, we argue that refugees who find their own housing are more likely to access social ties that support faster integration into the labour market. We use administrative and survey data on over 16,000 Syrian and Iraqi refugees granted residence in 2016, and we find that those in self-selected housing are, on average, more likely to be employed and to earn higher annual incomes than those in government-assigned housing. Introducing novel survey data, we also assess housing quality, security of tenure, and economic outcomes in neighbourhoods officially classified as areas with “socio-economic challenges”. While incomes are generally lower in these areas, refugees in self-selected housing still perform better than those in government-assigned housing. These findings highlight the importance of social networks for economic integration and raise concerns about how vulnerability classifications are applied in Swedish housing policy.

Migration policy in the Nordic welfare states is increasingly marked by restrictiveness. Although research has studied the consequences of this policy trend, there is limited knowledge about how it affects stress levels and the well-being of migrants. In this study, we examine the impact of a policy change implemented in Sweden in 2016 that resulted in the swift abandonment of permanent residence. To conduct our research, we use survey data to compare differences in self-stated levels of stress and well-being among those granted permanent residence status according to the pre-2016 policy and those granted temporary residence according to the new policy. Our findings indicate a significant difference in well-being between the two groups, with those granted temporary residence permits experiencing lower levels of well-being as well as more stress related to their own and their family members' status. Importantly, we conclude that a lower sense of well-being is correlated with higher levels of stress connected to residence status. These results have important implications for evaluating the impact of the new migration policy in Sweden and assessing similar policy trends in other contexts.

Denna studie fokuserar på en förbisedd dimension av bostadspolitiken, nämligen hur den kan användas som ett verktyg för att utestänga utsatta grupper från långsiktig bosättning. Vi fokuserar både på socialt och ekonomiskt utsatta grupper och mer specifikt på personer med flyktingbakgrund. Forskningen inom detta område förekommer i ett flertal olika discipliner. För att överblicka fältet och undersöka hur lokala beslutsfattare kan använda bostadspolitiken som ett verktyg för att agera grindvakter och därigenom utestänga utsatta grupper, tillämpar vi en systematisk litteraturöversikt. Den omfattar två huvuddelar: den första fokuserar på den internationella litteraturen inom ämnet, medan den andra undersöker den svenska. Den internationella översikten bygger på en sofistikerad sökning i den internationella vetenskapliga litteraturen och analyseras (i) statistiskt, genom (ii)nätverksanalyser och genom (iii) en tematisk analys. Den svenska delen utgår från s.k. grå litteratur som inte är granskad genom peer review (som exempelvis avhandlingar, myndighetsraporter) och analyseras endast genom en tematiskanalys. Resultaten visar att olika sorters politik som syftar till att utestänga utsatta grupper har snarlika effekter oavsett i vilket sammanhang som politiken tillämpas. I litteraturen görs en distinktion mellan metoder som avsiktligt utesluter respektive när detta blir en oavsiktlig konsekvens. Att kommuner i Sverige tolkar sitt bostadsförsörjningsansvar olika, leder till ojämlikhet och avsteg från likabehandlingsprincipen. Analysen visar också att lagar och reglers utformning samt ekonomiska resurser spelar en viktig roll i utfallet av förd bostadspolitik. Inte minst intar fenomenet social dumpning en central roll i den svenska litteraturen. Noterbart i analysen av både den svenska och internationella litteraturen är att det skett en normförskjutning kring vad som är samhällets ansvar kontra individens ansvar i bostadsförsörjningsfrågan, men också att bristen på adekvata bostäder förutsatta grupper är ett allvarligt problem både i Sverige och i många andra länder.

This study focuses on an overlooked dimension of housing policy, namely how housing can serve as a mean to exclude vulnerable groups in general, and more specifically immigrants, from long-term settlement. Research in this area is dispersed across various disciplines. To survey the field and explore how local decision-makers can utilize housing policy as a tool for gatekeeping and thus exclude vulnerable groups, we employ a systematic literature review. It consists of two main parts: the first one concentrates on the international literature on the subject, while the second investigates the Swedish context.The international review is based on a sophisticated search in the broader international scholarly literature and is analyzed through (i) statistical analysis, (ii)network analysis, and (iii) thematic analysis. The Swedish part draws on so called grey literature,analyzed through a thematic analysis.The results indicate, among other findings, that policies aimed at excluding vulnerable groups share similarities either in their design or in their consequential effects, regardless of the context in which the policy is applied. It is also evident how the literature distinguishes between policies that intentionally exclude and those that unintentionally exclude. In a Swedish context, the results indicate that municipalities in Sweden interpret their housing supply responsibility differently, leading to inequality and deviations from the principle of equal treatment. The analysis also demonstrates that economic resources and the design of laws and regulations play a crucial role in the outcome of housing policy. Notably, the phenomenon of social dumping occupies a central role in the Swedish literature. Both analyses indicate a norm shift regarding society's responsibility versus individual responsibility in housing supply issues, and that the lack of adequate housing is a significant problem both in Sweden and in many other countries.

The dramatic event that the great migration in the summer of 2015 entailed changed the migration policies of various countries. Substantial amendments were hastily made in a policy field in which already tense state-local relations struggled to manage coordination, responsibilities, and funding. Sweden, recognized as a final host country of the massive flows of refugees and asylum-seekers, was no exception. In Sweden, autonomy in terms of local refugee reception was circumvented in 2016. Municipalities’ remaining discretion is above all concentrated to one of the most crucial spheres of refugee reception: the outline of local housing policies. We argue that housing may be perceived as a tool of resilience that local governments may use to maintain far-reaching influence over the settlement of migrants with a refugee background by selecting restrictive or generous policy options. In this paper, we conduct a theoretically grounded analysis of local housing policy for refugees among Swedish municipalities. To capture the intrinsic dynamic, we propose a generic typology applying the dimension of either a liberal or a restrictive housing policy and relate it to theoretical notions of refugee policy as characterized by either a rights-based or a more restrictive approach. Our findings show that local governments in Sweden pursue a wide array of policy stances that appear to be correlated with factors originating from prior experiences of refugee reception, conditions in the labor and housing markets, and political circumstances. Based on this, we argue that local housing policy has offered municipalities a tool to exert a form of intentional, or unintentional, migration control despite national efforts to impose a more just system of refugee reception. 

This thesis consists of the following papers: In Paper I, I investigate the causal relationship between seat majorities for mainstream parties and refugee reception policy in Swedish municipalities. In conclusion, I find that the link between political seat majorities and refugee reception is of an associative rather than a causal nature. In order to find significant estimates, the win margin for each bloc needs to be rather substantial. Thus, the paper indicates that there is a unified political attitude over the mainstream blocs towards refugee reception and that other factors, and not political seat majorities, have contributed to the uneven distribution of refugees among municipalities in Sweden. In Paper II, I turn to focus on how stakeholders in four small-sized Swedish municipalities with diverging historical reception of refugees explain and describe their policy approach. By conducting semi-structured interviews, I find that stakeholders share a common understanding about how refugee reception has been performed locally (in terms of high or low refugee intake) and that they emphasise the importance of prior experiences rather than the composition of political parties or resources in explaining their current policy approach. In Paper III, which is co-authored with Henrik Andersson, we investigate whether asylum seekers react to changes in migration policy by assessing the effects of a Swedish regulatory change implemented in 2013. Using high-frequency data with information on the weekly number of asylum seekers, we find that refugees do react very rapidly, even within a week, but that the effects were temporary. We also find that the Swedish change of policy affected the distribution of Syrian asylum seekers in Europe in a significant manner as well as the characteristics of the Syrian population of refugees coming to Sweden. In Paper IV, which is co-authored with Darrel Robinson, we investigate the effects of residency status on the labour market participation of refugees. Using a full-population database, we show that residency status has a short-term effect on labour market participation among Syrian refugees, indicating that those granted temporary residency are more active in the labour market. However, those granted permanent residency are more likely to participate in education.

Whether refugees in need of protection should be granted long- or short-term residence permits in the host country upon arrival is a long-standing debate in the migration policy and scholarly literature. Rights-based models of inclusion advocate for secure and long-term residency status arguing that this will provide the foundations for successful inclusion. Responsibilities-based models on the other hand claim that migrants should only be granted such status if certain criteria, such as full-time employment, have been met, again under the belief that such a system will facilitate inclusion into the host society. Using a sudden policy change as a natural experiment combined with detailed Swedish registry data, we examine the effect permanent residency on three measures of labour market inclusion in the short-term. Our findings are twofold. On the one hand, we find that temporary residents that are subject to a relatively less-inclusive situation have higher incomes and less unemployment. However, at the same time, they are less likely to spend time in education than are those with permanent residency.

This study exploits close elections in Sweden to assess the causal relationship between seat majorities for mainstream political parties and refugee reception policy. The study focuses on the two dominant mainstream political blocs, in a centre‐right and a centre‐left coalition, during three waves of elections from 2002 to 2010. In doing so, the study makes a few contributions to current research: Firstly, besides addressing a current knowledge gap in the focus on mainstream parties and refugee reception policy, this study investigates the impact of seat majorities which potentially have a more influential position compared to individual parties. Secondly, the study relies on an empirical strategy which allows comparison of comparable cases. Lastly, the study focuses on mainstream parties at the local level of government within one institutional context and thus addresses the obstacle of case comparability within cross‐country studies. In conclusion, this study finds that the relationship between the mainstream political blocs and refugee reception policy is of an associative nature. In order to find significant estimates of seat majorities, the win margin for each bloc needs to be substantial. These results indicate that there is a unified political attitude over the mainstream blocs towards refugee reception and that other factors, and not political seat majorities, have contributed to the uneven distribution of refugees among municipalities in Sweden.