Women with foreign backgrounds pursue higher education the most

Young women with foreign backgrounds are the group most likely to continue to higher education in Sweden. This is despite the fact that, on average, they grow up in more socioeconomically disadvantaged households and are more likely to have parents without higher education—factors that usually lead to lower levels of educational attainment.

At the top are women born in Sweden with foreign-born parents. They are followed by women born abroad who immigrated to Sweden at a young age. Only after these groups come women and men with Swedish backgrounds.

Researchers at IFFS, Carina Mood and Jan Jonsson—both professors of sociology—have long studied the outcomes of young people with foreign backgrounds. They are interviewed in an article in SvD.

“Young people with foreign backgrounds are more likely to go on to university, they start earlier, and they have the same completion rates, even though on average they have weaker upper-secondary grades,” Carina Mood told SvD.

They also more often choose academic preparatory programs, such as science, and are more likely to apply to more demanding degree programs.

How can this be explained? Carina Mood points to attitudes and ambition as key factors.

“A majority of these students aim very high and have very strong ambitions. They manage to overcome the tougher conditions they face,” says Carina Mood.

At the same time, the picture is not uniform. Young people with foreign backgrounds are overrepresented both at the top and at the bottom. Here, time spent in Sweden plays a major role.

“There is a big difference between arriving at age nine or fourteen. And it’s not surprising if you only have a few years to learn the language and catch up with the subject content,” says Carina Mood.