In recent years, Sweden has received a huge amount of immigrants and the number of people who have been granted residence permits has been record high. At the same time, the statistics show high unemployment among immigrants and many of them experience ethnic discrimination by not being called to employment interviews. The purpose of this essay is to investigate whether the active measures that oblige the employer to counter discrimination are an adequate measure to break the power structures in the workplace, or if any form of unidentification of job applications should be required to ensure the legal protection in the recruitment process for people with different ethnicity than Swedish. In order to answer the purpose of the essay, the doctrinal method has been used. This method is based on establishing the current law through a systematic and critical interpretation. The material obtained in this essay is further examined through an intersectional perspective based on the power structures in society. The result of the study shows that the method of unidentifying jobapplications can be a reliable complement to the employer’s work with the active measures,as this method ensures that discrimination does not occur during the first recruitment phase and that issues of discrimination and diversity arise through the practice of the method. From there, the employer can focus the active measures on the second phase of recruitment. Furthermore, the study has shown that both the active measures and the method are insufficient to break the power structures in society, but that they together to some extent contributes to this.

To what extent does individuals’ personal opinions influence their professional behaviour? There has been an extensive field experiment on the existence of ethnic discrimination in the Swedish labour market. There are statistics data showing that people with Swedish or occidental-sounding names have an advantage over other ethnicities when it comes to being called in for job interviews. Similarly, the wage gaps between Swedes and other ethnicities are on the rise. Rising occurrences of ethnic discrimination in recruitment is an increasing concern in the Swedish labour market. This has significant implications for ethnic minorities and the prospect of a prosperous life.This paper was based on the study of the recruiters’ approach, perception of the phenomenon of ethnic discrimination. The purpose of the study was to shed light on the presence of ethnic discrimination in the recruitment process. Using a qualitative approach and qualitative interview as a method for data sampling, this study analysed recruiters’ attitudes and understanding of ethnic discrimination in the Swedish labour market. This study answers questions regarding societal norms and perceptions, which were found to play the greatest role in facilitating the spread of ethnic discrimination and stereotyping and categorising of ethnic minorities. These behaviours were found to be indirect discriminations based on implicit bias towards other groups. / <p>2020-06-08</p>

Using a quasi-experimental approach, this study analyses the effects of a specific exogenous shock on ethnic discrimination in Sweden by treating the terror attacks of 2015 in Paris as a natural experiment. Our research is based on cross-sectional survey data published by the European Social Survey (ESS). Slightly deviating from the traditional analytical approach, we observe individuals’ perception of being discriminated against rather than factual discrimination, thus contributing by analysing a common topic from a different perspective. We find that immigrants generally have a higher probability of perceiving themselves as discriminated against compared to natives. Subsequently, the probability increases further for Middle Eastern immigrants, females and for those who have experienced unemployment for at least three months.  When implementing a Difference-in-Difference method we find that average differences in perceived discrimination between immigrants and natives, but also between males and females, had increased after the terror attacks in Paris. Contrary to our expectations, our results indicate that Middle Eastern immigrants did not feel more discriminated after the terror attacks. However, the perception of being discriminated against is indicated to have increased for men. Nonetheless, in absence of statistically significant treatment effects we cannot conclude a relationship between the changes in average differences and the exogenous shock, suggesting that that the changes might be attributed to other factors.

This research explores how women who wear the veil face discrimination and everyday racism in society. The purpose of the study is to investigate how veiled health care workers experience discrimination and everyday racism in health care from colleagues and patients. By studying women's vulnerability, it is possible to gain a better understanding of what veiled women go through. The veiled women meet new patients and colleagues every day. Every day is a new challenge for them. These women have to endure racist and discriminatory comments from patients and colleagues on a daily basis, which results in them being affected in their work. I interviewed four veiled healthcare professionals who were willing to share their personal experiences with discrimination and everyday racism. The results showed that the women used humor to deal with racism and all respondents suffered from anxiety and pressure when dealing with patients and colleagues. The respondents felt subordinated and excluded. They experienced ethnic discrimination and religious discrimination. The patients and colleagues could express hostility towards the veil and assume that the women were oppressed because they wore the veil.

: Dagens svenska arbetsmarknad är etniskt segregerad och det lyfts ofta att utrikes födda har en utsatt position på den svenska arbetsmarknaden. Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka hur företag arbetar med att öka etnisk mångfald på arbetsplatsen och hur anonyma rekryteringsprocesser kan bidra till det arbetet. Vidare syftar studien till att undersöka hur HR-personal arbetar med att skapa en så rättvis rekryteringsprocess som möjligt och därmed bidrar till en minskad etnisk segregerad arbetsmarknad. Syftet besvaras genom två frågeställningar, på vilket sätt arbetar HR i organisationen för att främja mångfalden samt vilken betydelse har en anonym rekryteringsprocess för att bidra till mångfald. Tidigare forskningar visar att mångfaldsarbetet medför mycket fördelar som arbetsmotivation, legitimitet, företagsimage och rättvis behandling. Att vilja möta omvärldens krav är en stark drivkraft till varför företag arbetar med mångfald. Anonym rekrytering lyfts som ett verktyg som kan minska ojämlikheten i rekryteringsprocessen samt minskar risken för att chefer tar beslut baserade på stereotyper. Tidigare forskning lyfter även att arbetsmarknaden är etniskt segregerad i Sverige och att utrikes födda ofta blir bortvalda på grund av etnicitet trots att de besitter samma kompetens och erfarenheter som inrikes födda. Kvalitativa semistrukturerade intervjuer har använts för att genomföra studien där sju respondenter från fem olika företag inom privat sektor har intervjuats. Resultatet visar att HR-funktionen arbetar med att öka medvetenheten kring mångfald och dess positiva effekter på arbetsplatsen, samt att anonym rekrytering är ett verktyg som skapar en mer jämlik rekryteringsprocess och kan bidra till starkare mångfald på arbetsplatsen. / Today's Swedish labor market is ethnically segregated and it is often highlighted that foreign- born people have a vulnerable position on the Swedish labor market. The purpose of this study is to investigate how companies work to increase ethnic diversity in the workplace and how anonymous recruitment processes can contribute to that work. Furthermore, the study aims to investigate how HR personnel work to create as fair a recruitment process as possible and thereby contribute to a reduced ethnically segregated labor market. The purpose is answered through two questions, in which way does HR work in the organization to promote diversity and what is the importance of an anonymous recruitment process in contributing to diversity. Previous research shows that diversity work brings many benefits such as work motivation, legitimacy, company image and fair treatment. Wanting to meet the demands of the outside world is a strong driving force behind why companies work with diversity. Anonymous recruitment is highlighted as a tool that can reduce inequality in the recruitment process and reduce the risk of managers making decisions based on stereotypes. Previous research also highlights that the labor market is ethnically segregated and that foreign-born people are often excluded because of ethnicity, even though they have the same skills and experience as domestic-born people. Qualitative semi-structured interviews have been used to conduct the study where seven respondents from five different companies in the private sector have been interviewed. The result shows that the HR function works to increase awareness of diversity and its positive effects in the workplace and that anonymous recruitment is a tool that creates a more equal recruitment process and can contribute to stronger diversity in the workplace.

Abstract When an employer need to fire employees because of redundancy it has been found out that foreign-born workers are more negative affected than workers who is born in Sweden. The employer can apply several of provisions of 22 § LAS to create the case list. The regulations have in some cases been criticized to contribute to a structural discrimination on the Swedish labour market. The purpose of this study is to examine how the employer in different ways can affect the case list and examine whether the rules can be an example of structural discrimination, and how this in turn may affect the foreign-born workers. A legal dogmatic method has been applied to investigate the legal situation. And addition have also been made from a legal sociological method to create a picture to see how the situation for foreign-born employees looks on the Swedish labour market. The results of the study showed that the employer has great potential to influence the case list and that the employers right to lead the work is a strong principle. The biggest restriction in the employers right to lead the work is in the regulation that says that decision cannot be discriminatory. If the employer would make a decision that is disadvantage for some groups, there must be a factual statement for the decision. Furthermore, the study also concluded that there is a form of structural discrimination from the regulation of 22 § LAS. The structural discrimination is especially showed in how the law is constructed, and in norms and values that was held by employers and institutions.

This dissertation examines how young people with Kurdish backgrounds form their identity in Sweden with regards to processes of inclusion and exclusion. It also sheds light on the ways these young people deal with ethnic discrimination and racism. Further, the study outlines the importance of these social processes for the discipline of social work and the ways social workers can work with disadvantaged and marginalized groups and endorse their struggle for social justice and full equal citizenship beyond racist and discriminatory practices. The empirical analysis is built on interviews with 28 young men and women with Kurdish backgrounds in Sweden. Postcolonial theory, belonging and identity formation constitute the central conceptual framework of this study. The young people referred to different sites in which they experienced ethnic discrimination and stigmatization. These experiences involved the labor market, mass media, housing segregation, legal system and school system. The interviewees also referred to the roles of ‘ordinary’ Swedes in obstructing their participation in the Swedish society through exclusionary discourses relating to Swedish identity. The interviewees’ life situation in Sweden, sense of ethnic discrimination as well as disputes over identity making with other young people with Middle-Eastern background are among the most important reasons for fostering strong Kurdish nationalist sentiments, issues that are related to the ways they can exercise their citizenship rights in Sweden and how they deal with exclusionary practices in their everyday life. The study shows that the interviewees respond to and resist ethnic discrimination in a variety of ways including interpersonal debates and discussions, changing their names to Swedish names, strengthening differences between the self and the other, violence, silence and deliberately ignoring racism. They also challenged and spoke out against the gendered racism that they were subjected to in their daily lives due to the paternalist discourse of ”honor-killing”. The research participants had been denied an equal place within the boundary of Swedishness partly due to a racist postcolonial discourse that valued whiteness highly. Paradoxically, some interviewees reproduced the same discourse through choosing to use it against black people, Africans, newly-arrived Kurdish immigrants (”imports”), ”Gypsies” and Islam in order to claim a modern Kurdish identity as near to whiteness as possible. This indicates the multiple dimensions of racism. Those who are subjected to racism and ethnic discrimination can be discriminatory and reproduce the racist discourse. Despite unequal power relations, both dominant and minoritized subjects are all marked by the postcolonial condition in structuring subjectivities, belonging and identification.

The right to non-discrimination is a fundamental part of human rights. Sweden has enacted legislation which prohibits employers from discriminating or harassing employees and job seekers. Swedish authorities also receive a substantial amount of complaints concerning ethnic discrimination in the workplace every year and there are volumes of research showing structural injustices related to discrimination. Despite these facts few employers have so far been found guilty of discrimination on ethnic grounds in Swedish courts. This thesis aims to shed lights on and analyse how the Swedish anti-discrimination legislation is utilised in the Swedish Labour Court regarding discrimination and harassment on ethnic grounds. On the basis that very few lawsuits brought on behalf of employees/job seekers have been successful it is hypothesized that there are problems either with the form of the legislation or the assessment of the court. Firstly the shape of statutes, their legislative history and preparatory works are illustrated to create an understanding for the legal pre-conditions, thereafter the judgements of the Labour Court are analysed within the theoretical framework of the thesis – composed of Critical Race Theory and Sociology of Law. The study has shown problems concerning both the legislation and the assessment of the Labour Court. The legislation does not seem to embody the awareness of discriminating structures shown by the works of the preparatory committees. Further the assessments of the Court suggest a lack of understanding of the interaction between different pre-conditions and how these create a disadvantage for people of a minority standing which affects them both in the workplace and in the judgments of the Court.

This thesis is composed of four self-contained papers and focuses on discrimination in themarket place. Essay 1: “Disability Discrimination in the Rental Housing Market – A Field Experiment onBlind Tenants.” Although discrimination against disabled people has been investigated inthe labor market, the housing market has received less attention in this regard. This paperfocuses on the latter market and investigates whether blind tenants assisted by guide dogsare discriminated against in the rental housing market. The data are collected through afield experiment in which written applications were sent in response to onlineadvertisements posted by different types of advertisers. I find statistically significantevidence that one type of online advertiser, that is, the apartment owner (i.e., a person whoadvertises and rents out his/her own apartment(s) on his/her own), discriminates againstblind tenants, because of the presence of the guide dog, not because of the disability.According to the legislation, this behavior qualifies as illegal discrimination. Essay 2: “Does the design of correspondence studies influence the measurement of discrimination?”(co-authored with Carlsson and Rooth). Correspondence studies can identify the extent ofdiscrimination in hiring as typically defined by the law, which includes discriminationagainst ethnic minorities and females. However, as Heckman and Siegelman (1993) show,if employers act upon a group difference in the variance of unobserved variables, thismeasure of discrimination may not be very informative. This issue has essentially beenignored in the empirical literature until the recent methodological development byNeumark (2012). We apply Neumark’s method to a number of already publishedcorrespondence studies. We find the Heckman and Siegelman critique relevant forempirical work and give suggestions on how future correspondence studies may address thiscritique. Essay 3: “Does Labor Market Tightness Affect Ethnic Discrimination in Hiring?” (co-authoredwith Carlsson and Rooth). In this study, we investigate whether ethnic discriminationdepends on labor market tightness. While ranking models predict a negative relationship,the prediction of screening models is ambiguous about the direction of the relationship.Thus, the direction of the relationship is purely an empirical issue. We utilize three (butcombine into two) correspondence studies of the Swedish labor market and two distinctlydifferent measures of labor market tightness. These different measures produce very similarresults, showing that a one percent increase in labor market tightness increases ethnicdiscrimination in hiring by 0.5-0.7 percent, which is consistent with a screening model.This result stands in sharp contrast to the only previous study on this matter, Baert et al.(forthcoming), which finds evidence that supports a ranking model. Essay 4: “Relative Age Effect on Labor Market Outcomes for High Skilled Workers – Evidencefrom Soccer.” In sports and education contexts, children are divided into age groups that arearbitrary constructions based on admission dates. This age-group system is thought todetermine differences in maturity between pupils within the same group, that is, relative904627 Luca Furmaco_inl.indd 5 2015-02-24 16:58age (RA). In turn, these within-age-group maturity differences produce performance gaps,that is, relative age effects (RAEs), which might persist and affect labor market outcomes. Ianalyze the RAE on labor market outcomes using a unique dataset of a particular group ofhigh-skilled workers: soccer players in the Italian major soccer league. In line with previousstudies, evidence on the existence of an RAE in terms of representativeness is found,meaning that players born relatively early in an age group are over-represented, whileplayers born relatively late are under-represented, even accounting for specific populationtrends. Moreover, players born relatively late in an age group receive lower gross wages thanplayers born relatively early. This wage gap seems to increase with age and in the quantileof the wage distribution.

Unemployment is a debated topic in Sweden, and it is higher among people with a foreign background than among native-born people. The main purpose of this study is to examine the experiences of low-educated unemployed people with a foreign background who are experiencing difficulties in entering the Swedish labour-market, and to examine how they experience being without work, and how unemployment affects them negatively. The method used in this study is a qualitative and with five semi-structured interviews were implemented. The interviewees are unemployed. They also have a foreign background and they are low educated. We used a thematic analysis to analyse our collected material. The results of the study show that low-educated unemployed people with a foreign origins face difficulty in improving themselves in the Swedish labour-market. They experience that there are several different factors that weakened their establishment in the labour-market. The factors are, their level and the parents' low level of education, lack of the Swedish language as well as lack of social networks. They also experience discrimination both on the basis of its ethnicity and that they have a lower-class position in Swedish society as a result of being low educated. Unemployment leads these people to experiencing negative consequences, for example, feeling ashamed because their financial resources have deteriorated, which in turn leads to them having a lower economic position in the Swedish society. / Arbetslöshet är ett debatterat ämne i Sverige och den är högre hos personer med utländsk bakgrund än bland inrikesfödda personer. Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka hur lågutbildade arbetslösa med utländsk bakgrund upplever svårigheter att ta sig in på den svenska arbetsmarknaden, samt att undersöka hur de upplever att vara utan arbete, det vill säga hur arbetslösheten påverkar dem negativt. Uppsatsens metod är en kvalitativ och fem semistrukturerade intervjuer genomfördes. Intervjupersonerna är arbetslösa. De har även en utländsk bakgrund och en låg utbildnings nivå. En tematisk analys har använts för att analysera det insamlade materialet. Resultatet i studien visar att lågutbildade arbetslösa med utländsk bakgrund upplever svårigheter att etablera sig på den svensk arbetsmarknaden. De upplever att det är flera olika faktorer som försvagar deras etablering på arbetsmarknaden. Dessa faktorer är deras och även föräldrarnas låga utbildningsnivå, brist på det svenska språket samt brist på sociala nätverk. De upplever även diskriminering både utifrån sin etnicitet och att de har lägre klassposition i det svenska samhället till följd av att de är lågutbildade. Arbetslösheten leder till att dessa personer upplever negativa konsekvenser exempelvis, de upplever skamkänsla på grund av att deras ekonomiska resurser har försämrats, vilket i sin tur leder till att de får lägre ekonomisk position i det svenska samhället.