2019-2022. Financed by a grant from the Swedish Research Council (VR). 3.9 million SEK. Project leader: Dan-Olof Rooth.
The integration of refugees into the regular labor market takes a very long time. After eight years in Sweden, only about half are employed and there are clear gender differences. This pattern has not changed much over time despite ambitious establishment programs. The overall objective of the project is to study refugees' path towards employment the first years after arrival. The focus is on the matching between newly arrived immigrants and recruiting employers, with a particular focus on the employers. The knowledge provided by the project can be used to design integration measures so that the match between refugee immigrants and employers can be improved.
Promoting diversity in the labor market - what measures are most effective? Experimental studies in partnership with firms and organizations
2019-2024. Financed by a grant from the Swedish Research Council (VR). 17.6 million SEK. Project leader: Magnus Carlsson at Linneaus University.
Equal opportunities in the labor market irrespective of gender, ethnicity, age, disability, and sexual orientation is an important societal goal in the European Union. However, many firms and organizations struggle to reach this goal; workplaces are segregated and women are underrepresented in managerial jobs. The main purpose of the research environment is to gain knowledge about what measures are effective in promoting diversity in the labor market. This will be done by applying innovative field experimental methods in partnership with firms and organizations. We will focus on two outcomes: recruitment and promotions. The aim is to learn if and how i) practices and methods and ii) consciousness-raising measures and education have effects that increase diversity. Another purpose is to examine to what extent less studied groups are subjected to discrimination, and to investigate how belonging to several disadvantaged groups further affects discrimination. The proposed research environment should make a substantial contribution to both the scientific literature on diversity in the labor market and to practitioners working with diversity issues in firms and organizations. The nature of these research questions is multidisciplinary, and we will use theories and methods from mainly economics and psychology. The participants will include seven senior researchers as well as postdocs and PhD students. The environment will be led by a steering group and we apply for six years.
Long term causal effects of upper secondary school program
2017-2021. Financed by a grant from the Swedish Research Council (VR). 4.1 million SEK. Project leader: Anders Stenberg at SOFI, Stockholms University.
The aim of this project is to evaluate the causal effects of educational contents over the life course on choice of occupations and earnings, but also on voter turnout and health outcomes. Educational content is a very underdeveloped area of research although it may substantially affect a number of outcomes. A common assumption is that general education (language, mathematics, social science) enhances the ability to learn and affect the accumulation of skills, which implies that educational contents may have lifelong consequences.
Equal health care: Does Hassan receive the same treatment as Erik when suffering from sudden cardiac arrest and do medical staff's stereotypes influence treatment of patients from different groups?
2019-2022. Financed by a grant from the Swedish Research Council (VR). 2.4 million SEK. Project leader: Jens Agerström at Linneaus University.
According to the Health and Medical Services Act, all citizens have the right to receive equal health care regardless of group membership. Yet, there is a substantial lack of research examining health care disparities in Sweden. In addition, studies in the field tend to lack control over important confounding variables (e.g., if the patient has actively influenced treatment decisions), which make it difficult to conclude whether observed group differences reflect true disparate treatment discrimination by the care giver. The overall aim of this project is to examine whether prejudice and discrimination exist with respect to ethnicity, gender, age, and socioeconomic factors in the context of Swedish heart care, using different methodologies. Moreover, it examines how the combination of several group memberships (e.g., ethnicity * gender) influences treatment (intersectionality). Importantly, the project should have implications regardless of its results. If discrimination is uncovered, there will be an urgent need for interventions aimed to promote equal medical care and attitude change. If discrimination is not detected, minority groups are more likely to trust the health care system, which may reduce differences in patient behavior (e.g., seeking timely medical care) that may also contribute to group disparities in health care.
Populism, Inequality and Institutions
2018-2020. Financed by NORFACE. Project leader for Sweden: Anders Björklund at SOFI, Stockholms University.
By contrast to the politically-dominant view that populism is primarily a consequence of immigration, this project investigates the argument that the underlying driver is lifetime shifts in economic inequality, caused by on-going economic transformation through technological change and import competition. Our fundamental hypotheses are that the underlying dynamics of long-term economic structural transformation display similar patterns of change across advanced European countries. However, the pattern of populist attitudes may differ across countries, depending on how such long-term change can be mediated through institutions, education, retraining and upgrading; and how the effect of populist attitudes on politics is magnified via the configuration of electoral and party institutions. We address these hypotheses in comparative analysis combining theory with unique administrative and life-course data, combining insights from economics and political science. Research examining these hypotheses should have a major impact on rethinking education and training strategies and on how labour markets work.