Gunnar Myrberg 2012
Institute for Futures Studies, IFFS Report 2012/3, 82 p.
During the last decade, Denmark and Sweden have become increasingly dissimilar in terms of migration policy. While Sweden has remained relatively open with regard to refugees and asylum seekers, Denmark has gradually closed its borders to the extent that is has been questioned whether the country even lives up to the minimum standards set by international conventions.
Moreover, Sweden has a refugee dispersal policy which allows newly arrived refugees, asylum seekers and their relatives to choose where in Sweden they want to live, provided that they can find their own housing in that particular location.
In Denmark, on the other hand, those refugees, asylum seekers and their relatives, that actually do make it to Denmark, are dispersed as evenly as possible over the countries’ municipalities for a period of three years. Taken together, these two differences in terms of migration and refugee dispersal policies are bound to have effects on the reception of refugees at the municipal level and perhaps most strongly on the question of how to find housing for the newcomers.
The aim of this report is to study in what ways and to what extent, these differences are perceived at the municipal level in the cities of Malmö and Århus.
