Staten, företagen och arbetskraftsinvandringen : - en studie av invandringspolitiken i Sverige och rektryteringen av utländska arbetare 1960-1972

This dissertation investigates the labour migration from Southern Europe to Sweden, and the changes in Swedish immigration policy between 1960 and 1972. The first part of the dissertation examines the role of the state in shaping the migration streams from Southern Europe to Sweden. From the beginning of the 1950s to 1966, Sweden’s borders were relatively open, and this facilitated a significant amount of immigration. A system of unregulated individual labour migration developed, where foreign citizens could enter Sweden as tourists and thereafter look for work and obtain a work permit. For a significant period of time there doesn’t seem to have been any strong opposition to this laissez-faire system. This all changed during the 1960s, however, when the liberal immigration regulations were called into question. An important factor was that immigration increased dramatically in the mid-1960s. In addition, the national composition of the migration streams to Sweden changed during these years. Immigration from Yugoslavia, Greece and also from Turkey increased, while the number of immigrants from the Nordic countries diminished. In connection with the changing immigration pattern, certain actors, such as the trade unions and Sweden’s central employment authority, AMS, called for more restrictive immigration regulations. Demands from the trade unions and AMS led to a more stringent immigration control in 1966, and again in 1967, when a new Swedish immigration policy was introduced. Swedish research into changes in immigration policy during the 1960s often emphasizes the considerable influence of the trade unions on the policy shift. An argument put forward in this dissertation is that the intensification of immigration control not only reflected the demands of the trade unions, but that significant demands also came from within the state apparatus, and particularly from AMS. AMS was a relatively autonomous actor when the immigration regulations changed in 1966-1967, and its demands and knowledge regarding the influx of migrant labour made a significant contribution to the formation of the new immigration policy. The second part of the dissertation investigates how industrial companies have shaped the migration streams from Southern Europe to Sweden. Immigrants from Yugoslavia and Greece were often recruited in order to perform the heavy and subordinate work in the manufacturing industries that native workers had either avoided or left at that particular time. The dissertation attempts to explain this concentration of Southern Europeans in subordinate positions in the manufacturing industries. During the 1960s, Yugoslavs became the largest non-Nordic group in the migration streams to Sweden. How did Sweden become connected with this emigration country situated in the Mediterranean? A conclusion is that, to a great extent, the requirements and actions of industrial companies shaped the national composition of the migration streams to Sweden