on Wednesday presents Skandia Ideas for Life, a recent survey based on responses from more than 4,000 local councilors. It shows that the experience of increasing exclusion is mainly focused to the big cities, while the elected representatives of the country’s other municipalities have a much brighter picture. We also find a strong connection to preventive social work. The local politicians who feel that the business is geared to preventing future exclusion mean a much greater extent the situation has improved rather than deteriorated. The big challenge is that many municipalities have not yet learned the value of working preventively.
Sweden is in a strong boom. Although the public is worried about the country’s development. It appears in the report that the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency recently presented. It shows that 54 percent believe Sweden in the future will be a worse place to live in. Only 13 percent think it will be a better country. These concerns relate to people’s experiences of everyday life, as well as to hardly go a day without the media reporting on various forms of social unrest. Skandia Ideas for Life has investigated how local politicians look at developments in Sweden. On our mission has Demoskop during February and March examined the 4250 municipal politicians’ approach to social development.
Municipality survey shows that public concern also reflected in the elected representatives approach to development in recent years. 27 percent of respondents believe that social exclusion in the municipality deteriorated compared with five years ago. Meanwhile, there are also those that are more positive. 45 percent believe that the situation is unchanged, while 17 percent believe that social exclusion has been improved (the remaining answers do not know).
Anyone strongly linked to income level does not exist. In both the quarter counties with the lowest median income as the fourth highest median income answer 25 percent of those elected to exclusion deteriorated. However, the link with the employment rate strong. The lower the percentage who are employed in the municipality, the worse the perceived social development to be.
The alienation that exists in Sweden is often associated with the challenge to cope with integration. Our survey shows that there is no real link between the share of newcomers that municipalities receive, as a percentage of total municipal population and the elected representatives approach to the exclusion changed. However, they tend elected representatives in municipalities with a high percentage of foreign-born make greater experience a negative development.
This may at first glance seem paradoxical, but can be explained by the municipalities that have a high proportion of new arrivals and the municipalities which has a high proportion of foreign-born population is not necessarily the same. In many cases they end up newly arrived first in smaller municipalities and move after a few years’ residence to more populated municipalities such as Malmö and Södertälje, with a high proportion of foreign-born and low employment rate. One obvious conclusion is that the challenges of social exclusion risks becoming larger on integration in Sweden does not improve.
Perhaps most noteworthy is how much the cities are different from the rest of the country. In big cities mean 57 per cent of those elected to exclusion worsened. The corresponding percentage in major cities is 38 percent. At the other types of municipalities are significantly lower proportions. Only about a fifth of the elected representatives in the suburbs of major cities, the suburbs of large cities, tourism municipalities and rural municipalities indicates that exclusion has worsened.
This connects to the ongoing societal debate today is about inclusion and exclusion. Today, formed the image of the exclusion of the media reporting on social unrest in Gothenburg, Malmö and Stockholm. This concerns, inter alia manifests itself in young people give up the belief in their chances to succeed in school and end up in destructive behavior, should be taken very seriously. At the same time it is worth to be reminded that the challenges in the rest of the country is not seen as quite as obvious.
In this respect, a parallel can be drawn with the development of society in the United States, which increased alienation in the big cities have periodically gone hand in hand with improved social development in the less populated parts of the country. An important lesson is that the outsider propagation in large cities like New York not only has affected the individuals who themselves are living in alienation, but led to urban seen as less attractive for residents from the international business and leisure travelers. Another important lesson is that the negative social spiral in cities like New York, through long-term and systematic efforts, has been turned into a virtuous cycle.
Skandia Ideas for Life was formed in mid-1980s, as a counterforce against the hardening social climate that then prevailed. Since then, the Foundation, in addition to finance various social programs, worked to educate local politicians in the value of preventive social work. This means projects aimed at catching early signs of school failure and illness and target support before the individual’s journey of alienation gone far. As we highlighted in the book “of social exclusion price” provides research support for it is much smarter to take preventive action, by directing actions against persons who are heading into the exclusion, than passively watch and pay the high cost to people fall in unemployment and dependence of the public.
the survey provides strong support for this approach. Of the elected representatives respond that there is little or no emphasis on prevention in their communities mean that 44 percent exclusion worse, while only 6 percent experiencing improvement. Of those who responded that there is a focus on prevention in their municipal experience only 16 percent deterioration, while 28 percent believe that the situation has improved.
Unfortunately, many municipalities not learned the value of working preventively. Close to four in ten of the people’s representatives say that their municipality has little or no emphasis on prevention. It must be a change for the social development in Sweden will be reversed from the negative to the positive. We understand that municipal governments that are already struggling with social challenges happy pushes forward to the challenges ahead. But they all should ask: Have our community really afford not to invest in measures that will prevent future exclusion?
Lena Hawk
Sustainability Manager, Skandia
Nima Sanandaji
Technology Dr. and social commentator
Lena Hawk and Nima Sanandaji Photo: Skandia, Hamed Khoramyar
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