Immigration and the public sector:

Abstract. The immigrants ' age structure and labour market situation are major determinants for their net contribution to the public sector. During the 50s, 60s and the 70s the immigrants ' net contributions gave positive income e¨ects for the native Swedes. Nowadays there are negative income e¨ects due to the deteriorating employment situation among the immigrants. The yearly positive or negative income e¨ects have at most been 1±2 % of the gross national product. A change in the immigrants ' employment rate by 1 per-centage unit will change their yearly net contribution to the public sector by 0.1 % of the gross national product