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Arctic Yearbook 2014
The study was aimed to capture several dimensions. Firstly, local labour market opportunities for an
individual were compared. This was possible to do because the counties consist of less than 20
functional regions aggregated by SCB, and are considered in the paper as local labour markets. Local
labour markets were assumed to provide differences in levels of employment and earnings or fixed
effects. The expected effects might be related to less opportunities in the remote areas, compared to
cities and surrounding municipalities. Another expected disparity in labour outcomes across
municipalities was connected to local labour markets on the border with Finland, presumably
sharing labour markets with Finnish towns. This might distort the statistics on the actual local labour
market situation, because residents on the Swedish side can commute on a daily basis to Finland.
Therefore, people permanently employed in Finland but living in Sweden would not be registered as
having earnings in the data.
Secondly, immigration by origin was taken into account as potentially correlating with disadvantages
in the labour market. Besides, labour immigrants’ outcomes were compared to outcomes of other
immigrants. It was hypothesized that labour immigrants were better off in the labour market than
women coming for marriage, accompanying their spouses, or for asylum. Civil status of immigrants
was considered as an important determinant of vulnerability in the labour market. It was assumed
that women married to a Swedish-born partner, in general, were safer than married to an immigrant
partner, and the latter were less vulnerable than single mothers. This was because of long-run
perspectives of residing in Sweden for women in mixed couples and better opportunities of married
women to split housework and care-giving between the spouses and, therefore, to increase their
labour supply. However, only married Swedish women were considered as a reference to simplify
the analysis.
Methods
Panel data analysis was employed to study dynamics in earnings and LFP. It was based on the
ordinary least squares method, since a large number of observations does not suggest visible
similarities or dissimilarities between individuals. The earnings equation consisted of two sets of
dummies distinguishing local labour markets and two sets of dummies for groups of immigrants by
origin. The variables of interest and other explanatory variables are described below. The same
approach was applied for estimation LFP on the base of a linear probability model as justified by Aia
and Norton (2003). To test the effect of local labour markets on the border with Finland, a battery
of regressions with the exception of individuals residing in Haparanda, Övertornio or Överkalix was
run. Sampling weights were used in the estimation, because there was a large variation in the number
of observations in groups of immigrants. Weights were calculated as the inverse of the size of the
respective immigrant group.
Earnings were considered as incomes from both employment and self-employment, and individuals
with zero earnings were also included in the analysis. LFP was equal to one if an individual’s
earnings were greater than zero in the considered year. Full-time and part-time jobs were not
distinguished, therefore LFP and earnings can reveal different dynamics for ethnic groups. If parttime jobs were more common among certain group of immigrants, this would be seen in relatively
high LFP and low level of earnings.
Labour Market Outcomes of Migrant Women in Västerbotten & Norrbotten