Residential segregation, urbanization and unequal life-chances

Segregation and socioeconomic differences between areas and groups are receiving increasing attention in the public debate, both as a problem in itself but also in relation to crime and social unrest.

To influence the situation in the long term, it is necessary to understand how it has arisen, what consequences it has, and what impact different policy options have on individuals and areas.

This research program will address these issues through projects structured in three work packages (WPs) with partly different but related objectives.

The first aim (WP1) is to increase our understanding of what has shaped the residential segregation that exists in Sweden today.

To achieve this, we will apply modern statistical methods to geographically fine-grained individual-level data covering the entire population from 1950 to today. The second aim (WP2) is to investigate the consequences of growing up in a segregated landscape.

We will increase our understanding of how and why social mobility via the formation of and returns to human capital from early childhood through adolescence to adulthood varies across geographical areas, demographic groups and time.

The third part (WP3) of the program is the evaluation of area and individual-oriented policies aimed at improving individuals´ life chances and conditions in different urban and rural areas.