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It's not true that Scandinavian countries are homogeneous. 30% in Sweden are either born abroad or have at least 1 parent born abroad. Even more obviously have

by jacobr 9y ago

It's not true that Scandinavian countries are homogeneous. 30% in Sweden are either born abroad or have at least 1 parent born abroad. Even more obviously have some non-Swedish cultural background or influence.

circadiam 9y ago
I see this point raised a lot but the stat is fueled by Western immigrigants—not non-Western immigrants. You can’t count a bunch of blonde German & French doctors and engineers as disrupting the fabric of society. Denmark has less than 4% non-Western immigrants while the US has nearly 25%.
jchb 9y ago
This is a pretty recent phenomena. The first large immigration wave came in the end of the 60s [0]. Before that, the few foreign born citizens where mostly from the neighboring Scandinavian countries. Until 2017, the largest group among foreign born Swedish citizens where.. Finnish. Now, that although that has changed, the article mentions the large immigrant population isn't well integrated in society in Denmark, well they aren't in Sweden either. It would be fair to say that there are multiple parallel societies. Political and business life is to a large extent dominated by ethnic Swedes. [0] http://www.scb.se/en/finding-statistics/statistics-by-subject-area/population/population-projections/population-projections/pong/tables-and-graphs/the-future-population-of-sweden-20162060/immigration-and-emigration-and-forecast/ http://www.scb.se/en/finding-statistics/statistics-by-subjec...
prepend 9y ago
Foreign born includes Danes and Norwegians so trying to disprove the claim that Sweden is socially homogenous by pointing out that there are Finns and Danes, doesn’t make your argument convincing. I think what makes a comparison difficult with the US is the difference race and ethnicity make between countries (eg, Sweden and US). In the US there are many negative correlations with race and ethnicity that make diversity comparisons simple to make (although not necessarily accurate). So people can easily look for diversity by just checking race demographics. It’s also difficult because some people talking about race are racists who have incorrect beliefs, but it’s hard to tell who’s who at first. When looking at Sweden it’s not straightforward to look at race and I couldn’t even find solid numbers that describe Sweden by race, although only spent a few minutes googling. But in the US, racial demographics are immediately available. If you compare nation of birth != Sweden that’s not necessarily useful comparing to the US as it includes other culturally similar peoples (eg, Norwegians). It would be like saying New York is diverse because it includes lots of people born in Connecticut while not breaking out those born in Somalia. The comparison that is relevant is what are the diverse cultures, specifically those from lower socioeconomic status. Unless you can check that mix, then it’s not very useful to compare and make claims. Of course, the purpose of comparison isn’t to achieve some sort of purity goal, that’s insane. But to identify what interventions are most effective based on cultural composition. While theoretically a country would higher social cohesion by getting rid of all the different peoples (Denmark pretty much did this is WW2 with the help of the Nazis). This is short sighted (hurts World to help country) and immoral (genocide is bad).

by jacobr 9y ago

circadiam 9y ago

I see this point raised a lot but the stat is fueled by Western immigrigants—not non-Western immigrants. You can’t count a bunch of blonde German & French doctors and engineers as disrupting the fabric of society. Denmark has less than 4% non-Western immigrants while the US has nearly 25%.

jchb 9y ago

This is a pretty recent phenomena. The first large immigration wave came in the end of the 60s [0]. Before that, the few foreign born citizens where mostly from the neighboring Scandinavian countries. Until 2017, the largest group among foreign born Swedish citizens where.. Finnish. Now, that although that has changed, the article mentions the large immigrant population isn't well integrated in society in Denmark, well they aren't in Sweden either. It would be fair to say that there are multiple parallel societies. Political and business life is to a large extent dominated by ethnic Swedes. [0] http://www.scb.se/en/finding-statistics/statistics-by-subject-area/population/population-projections/population-projections/pong/tables-and-graphs/the-future-population-of-sweden-20162060/immigration-and-emigration-and-forecast/ http://www.scb.se/en/finding-statistics/statistics-by-subjec...

prepend 9y ago

Foreign born includes Danes and Norwegians so trying to disprove the claim that Sweden is socially homogenous by pointing out that there are Finns and Danes, doesn’t make your argument convincing. I think what makes a comparison difficult with the US is the difference race and ethnicity make between countries (eg, Sweden and US). In the US there are many negative correlations with race and ethnicity that make diversity comparisons simple to make (although not necessarily accurate). So people can easily look for diversity by just checking race demographics. It’s also difficult because some people talking about race are racists who have incorrect beliefs, but it’s hard to tell who’s who at first. When looking at Sweden it’s not straightforward to look at race and I couldn’t even find solid numbers that describe Sweden by race, although only spent a few minutes googling. But in the US, racial demographics are immediately available. If you compare nation of birth != Sweden that’s not necessarily useful comparing to the US as it includes other culturally similar peoples (eg, Norwegians). It would be like saying New York is diverse because it includes lots of people born in Connecticut while not breaking out those born in Somalia. The comparison that is relevant is what are the diverse cultures, specifically those from lower socioeconomic status. Unless you can check that mix, then it’s not very useful to compare and make claims. Of course, the purpose of comparison isn’t to achieve some sort of purity goal, that’s insane. But to identify what interventions are most effective based on cultural composition. While theoretically a country would higher social cohesion by getting rid of all the different peoples (Denmark pretty much did this is WW2 with the help of the Nazis). This is short sighted (hurts World to help country) and immoral (genocide is bad).