Demographics of Sweden

The Demographics of Sweden is about the demographic features of the population of Sweden, including population growth, population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population. In addition to the ethnic Swedish majority, Sweden has historically had smaller minorities of Sami people in the northernmost parts of the country and Finns in the Mälardalen and in the north of Sweden. The demographic profile of Sweden has changed significantly as a result of immigration since World War II.

Demographics of Sweden, Data of FAO, year 2005 ; Number of inhabitants in thousands.

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Beside the Swedes, the Sweden-Finns are the largest ethnic minority comprising approximately 50,000 along the Swedish-Finnish border, and 450,000 first and second generation immigrated ethnic Finns. Also in the farthest North a small population of Samis live. More than 100,000 Assyrians/Syriacs live in Sweden, including around 40,000 in Stockholm County. The first group of Assyrians/Syriacs moved to Sweden from Lebanon in 1967. Many of them live in Södertälje (Stockholm), also known as Mesopotälje (after Mesopotamia). There are around 40,000 Roma in Sweden.

Language

Main articles: Swedish Language and Languages of Sweden

The Swedish language is by far the dominating language in Sweden, and is used by the government administration. The indigenous Finno-Ugric languages were repressed well into the 1960s. Since 1999 Sweden has five officially recognized minority languages: Sami, Meänkieli, Standard-Finnish, Romani chib and Yiddish. The Sami language, spoken by about 7,000 people in Sweden, may be used in government agencies, courts, preschools and nursing homes in the municipalities of Arjeplog, Gällivare, Jokkmokk and Kiruna and its immediate neighbourhood. Similarly, Finnish and Meänkieli can be used in the municipalities of Gällivare, Haparanda, Kiruna, Pajala and Övertorneå and its immediate neighbourhood. Finnish is also official language, along with Swedish, in the city of Eskilstuna.

The largest minority languages are those spoken by immigrants, the most popular of which are Turkish, Finnish, Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, Arabic, Assyrian, Persian, Spanish, Kurdish, English and Somali.

Emigration

In the 19th century, Sweden's yearly population growth rate peaked at 1.2% (i.e. it doubled in less than 60 years), compared to 1% today (migration excluded). This considerable population growth rate led, before the Industrial Revolution, to a pauperization of the rural population, for each generation inherited smaller and smaller shares. Due to years of crop failure in the 1840s and 1860s, the U.S. Homestead Act of 1862, and to a lesser extent religious persecution, emigration started and grew. Between 1850 and 1930 1,050,000 Swedes emigrated (re-migration excluded), chiefly to Canada, U.S. and to Denmark. If they had not left, Sweden's population would have been about 2,000,000 higher today, assuming famine and civil war wouldn't have resulted from their staying. (After 1929 the net-migration has been directed towards Sweden.)

The re-migration of Swedish nationals from the U.S. was culturally more important than the absolute figures reveal. The re-migrants often re-settled in their native parish, where their relative wealth and foreign experience ensured a prestigious position in the community. U.S. views, values and not the least world-view followed the re-migrants, ensuring a popular perception of closeness to U.S., contrary to the situation in for instance neighbouring Denmark or Finland (and contrary to the Swedish elite's closeness to Germany and Europe).

Immigration

Year	Migrants /1000 of population
1989	1
1990	3
1991	3
1992	3
1993	2
1994	3
1995	2.62
1996	2.27
1997	1.69
1998	1.69
1999	1.68
2000	0.86
2001	0.91
2002	0.95
2003	1.00
2004	1.67
2005	1.67
2006	1.66
2009	1.66

As of 2008, 18% of the population had foreign origins (13% if excluding Finns and 9% if also excluding other Scandinavians), with 14% foreign-born and another 4% born in Sweden of two foreign-born parents.

Immigration increased markedly with World War II. Historically, the most numerous of foreign born nationalities are ethnic Germans from Germany and other Scandinavians from Denmark and Norway. {{citation}}: Empty citation (help) In short order, 70,000 war children were evacuated from Finland, of which 15,000 remained in Sweden. Also, many of Denmark's nearly 7,000 Jews who were evacuated to Sweden decided to remain there. {{citation}}: Empty citation (help)

From the late 1940s and until 1973 work-force immigration dominated, peaking in the late 1960s. {{citation}}: Empty citation (help) Finns make up about 5% of the whole population. {{citation}}: Empty citation (help) The occupant population of northern Sweden, the Sami people, (a ethnic group living in 4 countries) is only about 20,000 persons.

The foreign-born population in 2008 consisted mainly of Europeans, particularly those from other Scandinavian countries: 56.9% of the foreign-born were European, with 21.0% being Scandinavian. Asia accounted for 28.2%, Africa 7.1%, South America 4.8%, and North America 2.2%. The largest single country population represented was Finland at 13.7% of the foreign-born (1.9% of the total population); other countries with 5% or more of the foreign-born population were Iraq (8.5%), Yugoslavia (5.6%), and Poland (5.0%).

Migration triggered by political crises and economic disparities in the second half of the 20th century include refugee groups of Assyrians/Syriacs from Syria, Turkey, Lebanon and Iraq; Persians; Kurds from Iraqi Kurdistan and Turkey; Palestinians; Koreans from South Korea and Manchuria, China; Filipinos; Vietnamese; Argentinians; Baluchis from Pakistan; Moroccans; Spaniards; Sicilians from Italy; Hungarians; and Chileans.

Sweden has taken in refugees from various countries fleeing persecution, including people from the former East Germany, Poland, Iran, Myanmar, Vietnam, Nicaragua and Guatemala; and more recently from conflict-zones in the former Yugoslavia, Chechnya, Libya, Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan and Somalia.

In fact, Sweden has a history of providing refuge to asylum seekers. On a smaller scale, it took in political refugees from Hungary and the former Czechoslovakia after their countries were invaded by the Soviet Union in 1956 and 1968 respectively. Some tens of thousands of American draft dodgers from the Vietnam War in the 1960s and 1970s also found refuge in Sweden.

Today, Sweden has one of the largest exile communities of Assyrians/Syriacs.

A sizable community from the Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) arrived during the Second World War.

Religion

Main article: Religion in Sweden

Although only one fifth of Swedes in one investigation chose to describe themselves as believing in God , the majority (78%) of the population belongs to the Church of Sweden, the Lutheran church that separated from the state in 2000. This is because until recently, those who had family members in the church automatically became members at birth. Other Christian denominations in Sweden include Roman Catholic (see Catholic Church of Sweden), Orthodox, Baptist, and other evangelical Christian churches (frikyrkor = "free churches"). Shamanism persisted among the Sami people up until the 18th century, but no longer exists in its traditional form as most Sami today belong to the Lutheran church. There are also a number of Muslims, Buddhists, Bahá'í and Jews in Sweden, mainly from immigration.

Statistics

According to Statistiska centralbyrån (Statistics Sweden), Sweden's population reached 9,000,000 As of 12 August 2004. See the Swedish population web counter.

• Population: 9,316,256 (As of 31 August 2009)
• Annual population growth rate: 0.82% (As of 2009)
• Population growth: Averaging 1 person/15 minutes
• Net migration rate: 0.91 migrant(s)/1,000 population (As of 2001 est.)

• Total fertility rate: 1.94 children born/woman (2009 est.)
• Infant mortality rate: 2.8 deaths/1,000 live births (As of 2006 est.)

• Life expectancy at birth: 79.71 years
  • Male: 77.07 years
  • Female: 82.5 years (As of 2001 est.)

Within Sweden's current borders, the historic population has been estimated to the following values:

At the end of year	Population	Annual growth
		Total	Per thousand
1570	900,000	-	-
1650	1,225,000	4,063	3.86
1700	1,485,000	5,200	3.86
1720	1,350,000	- 6,750	- 4.75
1755	1,878,000	15,086	9.48
1815	2,465,000	9,783	4.54
1865	4,099,000	32,680	10.22
1900	5,140,000	29,743	6.48

CIA World Factbook demographic statistics

For the latest statistics, see this country's entry in the CIA World Factbook

Sweden household census 1990

• Total number of households: 3 830 037
• Inv on average per household: 2.1
• Number of children 0–18 years on average per household: 1.72

For the population from household incounting date was the total population of Sweden estimated to be 8.526 million of them 8.043 million people came from all 3.830 million household's. (1990)

Ethnicity	number	%
Swede	6,836,615	85,0
Finns	402,153	5,0 %
Norwegian		0.5
Danes		0.5
Croats		0.5
Albanians		0.5
Serbs		0.5
Bosnian		0.5
Lebanese		0.5
Turks		0.5
Iraqis		0.5
Iranians		0.5
Roma	39,974	0.497
Assyrians	39,411	0.49
Lappish	19,303	0.24
Estonians		0.1
Chilean		0.1
Greeks		0.1
Somalis		0,1
Others	279,336	3,473
Undeclared		0,0
Total	8,043,077	100.0

Sweden census 2005

The 2005 Swedish census showed an increase of 475,322 compared to the 1990 census, an average increase of 31,680 annually. During the 1990s, birth rate increased by more than 100,000 children per year while death rates fell and immigration surged. In the early 2000s, birth rate declined as immigration increased further, with the context of unrest in the Middle East, upholding steady population growth.

Notably, the Swedish-Finnish majority grew as well as the Assyrian minority, while the Sami and Roma minorities decreased sharply - leaving most other groups unchanged.

Ethnicity	number	%
Swede	7,651,507	85.0
Finns	449,188	4.99
Assyrians	79,215	0.88
Norwegian		0.5
Danes		0.5
Croats		0.5
Albanians		0.5
Serbs		0.5
Bosnian		0.5
Lebanese		0.5
Turks		0.5
Iraqis		0.5
Iranians		0.5
Roma	36,007	0.4
Lappish	6,800	0.1
Estonians		0.1
Chilean		0.1
Greeks		0.1
Somalis		0,1
Others	270,053	3.0
Undeclared		0,0
Total	9,001,774	100.0

*Note: The 2010 estimate from Statistiska Centralbyrån suggested that Swedens population had risen by roughly 300,000 to 9,347,899. This estimate represents an increase by 91,552 since 2009 years estimate, a record increase since 1946. By the year 2020 the population is expected to rise to over 10 million people.

Age structure

• 0–14 years: 15.7% (male 733,597; female 692,194)
• 15–64 years: 65.5% (male 3,003,358; female 2,927,038)
• 65 years and over: 18.8% (male 753,293; female 950,171) (As of 2009 est.)

Net migration rate

• 1.66 migrant(s)/1,000 population (As of 2009 est.)

Sex ratio

• at birth: 1.06 male(s)/female
• under 15 years: 1.06 male(s)/female
• 15–64 years: 1.03 male(s)/female
• 65 years and over: 0.79 male(s)/female
• total population: 0.98 male(s)/female (As of 2009 est.)

Infant mortality rate

• total: 2.75 deaths/1,000 live births

Life expectancy at birth

• total population: 80.86 years
• male: 78.59 years
• female: 83.26 years (As of 2009 est.)

Total fertility rate

• 1.67 children born/woman (As of 2009 est.)

Religions

• Lutheran (Church of Sweden) 73%, other 27%

Literacy

• definition: age 15 and over can read and write
• total population: 99% (As of 2003 est.)

Nationality

• noun: Swede(s)
• adjective: Swedish

See also

• Statistics Sweden
• Municipalities of Sweden
• Demographical center of Sweden
• Immigration to Europe
• List of countries by immigrant population
• Aging of Europe

External links

• Population Statistics – in English
• Statistics Sweden – Official Data Base