> It's my understanding that the northern European countries have very low immigration rates Your understanding is wrong, immigration is rampant in Sweden with

> It's my understanding that the northern European countries have very low immigration rates Your understanding is wrong, immigration is rampant in Sweden with around 150.000 people (about 1.3% of the population) coming in every year. Some 25% of the population was born outside of the country by now, this number is only growing. Germany and the Netherlands also see very high migration although the numbers are a bit lower seen relative to the population. While these newcomers do contribute to a younger population they also have made the male-female distribution quite lopsided since the vast majority of migrants is male. Sweden now has the same problems as China has there with about 116 males for every 100 females in the 16-18yo age bracket - these numbers may be off by a bit (i.e. the difference may have grown) since I last checked these statistics a few years ago. Unfortunately the employment statistics do not look good for these newcomers which have trouble getting into the Swedish labour market with its high requirements on education which actually only increases the problems the country has in keeping the welfare state up and running. Pension ages are going up to compensate for this which goes against what the population was told when they were faced with a large influx of newcomers who were supposedly 'necessary for the future of the welfare state'. Had this been the case that welfare state would be a Ponzi scheme and any newcomer who was foolish enough to fall for the lure would end up working for benefits he would be sure never to get. In reality it is those who have already worked to build up the welfare state who get to pay for a large fraction of the newcomers - e.g. Somalian immigrants to Sweden are only ~20% self-supporting with the rest depending on government benefits, 37% of migrants from Africa and the Middle East - who make up the majority of non-EU migrants coming to Sweden - were self-supporting in 2016 with the other 63% being dependent on government benefits. The Swedish welfare state will need to be reformed or it will not survive.