Refugee Resettlement in Sweden: Background information when reading After She's Gone

Refugee Resettlement in Sweden

This article relates to After She's Gone

Camilla Grebe's novel focuses on Sweden as a haven for asylum seekers. The ongoing crisis of refugees from Syria has been particularly visible in Sweden, which accepted more than 160,000 migrants (primarily from Syria but also from Afghanistan and Iraq) in search of asylum in 2015 alone, the most of any other country per capita. Since the early 2010s, population growth from immigration to Sweden has actually exceeded population growth due to births in the country. As of 2016, there were more than 116,000 Syrians residing in Sweden.

Although this latest wave of refugee resettlement continues, recent years have also seen a rise in resistance to immigration, paralleling trends in other European countries and in the United States. A rise in anti-migrant sentiment, as well as new laws that make it more difficult for asylum-seekers to gain permanent residency, have begun to change Sweden's reputation as a welcoming sanctuary for migrants.

This developing hesitation around refugee resettlement in Sweden may be short-sighted. A recent Bloomberg article credits Sweden's diverse and growing workforce with its robust economy relative to the rest of the EU. And small cities like Malmö have become foodie destinations, thanks to the burgeoning Middle Eastern restaurant scene there, sparked by the city's vibrant immigrant population.

Filed under Society and Politics

This article relates to After She's Gone. It first ran in the March 20, 2019 issue of BookBrowse Recommends.