DN Debate. Etnifierad subclass is likely to become permanent in Sweden

Sweden is in almost all measurable ways a very egalitarian country. Poverty is low, income inequality is small and the social mobility is high. However, there are worrying signs that the risk of exclusion that is inherited increases. One of bourgeois policy, the main tasks of the future must therefore be to prevent the emergence of a permanent, all the more ethnically defined underclass.

Social mobility is important in a marknadsliberalt society. Liberals and conservatives can live with the economic differences between people, so long as these are in large extent based on their own effort and not even the parents ' difficulties and choice. If income inequality increases by, in essence, meritokratiska causes, it is not a problem; on the contrary, are strong in the interests of fairness to allow more hard – working- and taxed – citizens retain a greater portion of their income.

One inherits simply their parents ' success to a certain extent. In the report ”the Alienation of the generations: How can immigrant children come from their parents 'dependency” , released today, I have compiled recent research that shows that you also inherit their parents' unemployment, welfare dependency, and crime. The greatest risk is if the parents ' dependency, the long-term.

One positive trend is that social mobility has increased in Sweden during the 2000s, partly due to the benefits system has been tightened.

Of the children of parents who received financial aid during the up to half of the children received 14 percent of the children, then the same contribution in the adult age, while almost twice as many children – 26 percent – received financial assistance if the parents received it for more than three-quarters of childhood (Edmark & Hanspers, 2011). The children of parents in dependency have also on average worse in school, drop out of high school in a larger extent and at greater risk of mental illness (Dark, Sjögren, & Svaleryd, 2015).

One positive trend is, therefore, that social mobility has increased in Sweden during the 2000s, partly due to the benefits system has been tightened. This despite the fact that income inequality has increased (Socialstyrelsen, 2010). A contributing factor has been that the contributions not been increased as fast as salaries and taxes on income reduced, which means that people living on benefit will have a relatively lower income. This has meant that more people support themselves rather than be dependent on grants – the mobility out of poverty into self-sufficiency has increased.

Sweden has had a very large immigration: only in the last 15 years, 1.6 million people received a residence permit here. High thresholds, and get roads into the labour market has meant that many immigrants are unemployed. The unemployment rate among domestic-born is today 3.8 per cent, while for the foreign-born are 15.4 percent. Decomposed in the region of origin, the difference is even greater. While immigrants from Europe and south America is almost twice as high unemployment as the native born, so the unemployment rate is more than six times as high among people born in Asia and almost seven times as high among people born in Africa.

Many of the country's unemployed, and welfare dependency, immigrants often live in the same places, in the so-called utanförskapsområden. Total live a half a million people in an exposed area, of which 74 per cent of these have an immigrant background. These areas are characterised by low educational attainment, crime, welfare dependency and insecurity. Already today, one can conclude that the subclass is etnifierad. The only question is if it becomes permanent.

to reverse this trend, I propose, today, reforms in three areas:

1 , A more restrictive funding policy . Performance requirements, so-called set-up requirements, increasing labour supply and reducing dependence on social assistance. On the one hand, the incentives to actually do not end up in the social services, and partly from a strengthening of the driving forces to get out of the försörjningsstödet because the opportunity cost has risen.

Evidence shows that the theory is true, and it is above all young people between 18 and 24 years old after the introduction of the aktiveringskraven 1998 avoid to open a path with grants and foreign-born who make more out of it (Dahlberg, Dark & Hanspers, 2008). The social services act allows for the activation requirements, but the application is very different municipalities in between. For example, Solna, Växjö, makes much stricter interpretations and requires that able-bodied beneficiaries to participate in operations every day, all the days. If you refuse, you so deducted, the grant check, and home visits are carried out to ensure that there is no cheating with the entries.

In both municipalities, both the percentage that the number of families in the income support has declined drastically since the introduction. Experience from Germany shows that it provides positive effects on employment if the beneficiaries will receive their grants reduced if they, for example, to play truant from the meeting or will be late for their placements.

Sweden should amend the social security act so that all municipalities are forced to take after the Solna and Växjö, as well as open up for the German management.

2 A school policy for klassresenärer. Between 30 and 40 per cent of social mobility can be explained by a child's schooling. Therefore, it is particularly alarming that the newly arrived pupils are performing poorly, and that the proportion of lågpresterare in, for example, Pisa has become more. The OECD suggest that immigrant children can achieve higher results with higher demands and expectations.

to reverse this trend, should the government choose out of Sweden's 15 worst förortsskolor for the american Kipp program. The program caters to the marginalized groups and is characterized by orderliness, continuous monitoring of academic progression and very high expectations. In the U.S., it has led to very good results, despite the fact that the students had significantly worse conditions than others.

3 don't forget lowering taxes on low incomes. It has long been a tendency in bourgeois circles to ”invent” new political reforms, even though we know what actually works. For example, we know that the subsidized employment, which has long been used as a generallösning to compensate for many immigrants, reduced productivity, are among the least efficient and most expensive measures (Avorin, 2018).

instead, we must not forget the policies that actually work, which is lower taxes on low incomes. Only in Sweden is computed as the earned income tax credit have created between 86 000-165 000 new jobs, particularly for groups with limited language skills, educational background and low employment (Lundberg, 2018).

but we've now got a etnifierad subclass that inherit their parents ' dependency. We must remain a country where the talented but poor can succeed we needed a new policy for class trips.