Immigration and native employment : A study of the effects in Sweden 2011-2017

Immigration has been and will continue to be a common occurrence in the world. As a field ofstudy immigration is a controversial subject. In addition, there are many contradictory previous results from studies on the effects of immigration on the native born population. This thesis isa compliment to earlier research on the field with a focus on the effects on the employment rate of natives in Sweden. The aim of the study is to move the field towards coherence. Panel data for the years 2011 to 2017 are used and the observations are the 290 municipalities in Sweden. An econometric approach is conducted where the response variable is the percent of the native born population which is gainfully employed. The thesis shows that there is a small but positive correlation between immigration and the employment rate of natives in Sweden, at least as long as there are not too many people with low economic standard. If too many people have a low economic standard the amount of foreign born who are gainfully employed will have a negative effect on the amount of native born who are gainfully employed