Asylum Seekers and Undocumented Migrants’ Increased Social Rights in Sweden1

The most direct way to regulate immigration is to decrease the possibilities to reach a state’s territory through visa demands, carrier sanctions, and limiting the chances of granting a residence permit even when a person succeeds in reaching a state’s territory. However, during the last decade several scholars noted that in an attempt to decrease the number of asylum seekers, states have also started to curb asylum seekers and undocumented immigrants’ right to work and social benefits. Intriguingly, even though Sweden has followed this international pattern of using direct ways to curb the number of asylum seekers, this paper shows that to a large extent Sweden has abstained from using the more recent indirect methods. Although there are examples of reductions in social benefits, the trend has generally been the reverse in Sweden. Unexpectedly, we suggest that an economic crisis, such as the one that occurred in Sweden in the early 1990s, may lead to an increase of certain rights. We also discuss a number of possible explanations for the Swedish case, including whether a proportional electoral system creates possibilities for small parties to influence policies pertaining to social rights. Furthermore, since we demonstrate that in recent years children have been the primary beneficiaries of an increase in social rights, we suggest that groups perceived to be vulnerable are more likely to experience an increase in social rights.