Please check my thesis English errors!

The purpose of this study is about Rosengård. The research question is to find out the reasons why many immigrants live in this area. To reach the information I begin my research by the history of segregation in Sweden and Malmo and then I focus on the segregation in Rosengård. Also my curiosity about the bad reputation of Rosengård makes me to find out the current situation of this area by asking respondents their idea about their life condition in Rosengård. According the respondent reply many residents of Rosengård choose this area to live for some factors such as their economic status and joining to their family union. Many respondents like to live in Rosengård and believe that unlike the bad reputation it is safe. Some of them think that they have not seen any crime but when the media say it is unsafe they should take care of their family especially in dark.

1. 1. Introduction

Rosengård is known as an immigrant dense area. Due to some crimes and fire-fighting that happened during past years, Rosengård has also got a reputation for being unsafe. During the first months that I stayed in Malmo, I heard a lot about segregation and how unsafe it is in Rosengård, so I decided to look into the reality of this reputation and also investigate its problem in Rosengård. This paper is about Rosengård as a district that has a high share of immigrant. This study aim to discuss and present some empirical findings focused of the immigrant segregation challenging from various perspectives by review of related literature and discussion of small empirical study. For this reason and the limited time that I have, I make internet-based survey to learn about residents’ point of view based on which I will discuss the issue of segregation and the reputation of Rosengård. The starting point is an understanding of social segregation in Rosengård and Malmo.

1.2. Problem statement



Increasing the population of immigrants and segregation has created a social and an ethnic border inside many cities of Sweden (Ristilammi 2000, Stigendal 1999). Integration is not currently successful in Malmo, segregation is increasing (Andersson, 2007, p.83); employment integration of immigrants is decreasing (Bevelander, 2010, p.297); crime in suburb Sweden is increasing (Ceccato & Dolmen, 2010, p.1).

Rosengård became one of the symbols of Sweden's struggles with integration .One of the steps in development of Malmo is to make the city denser and interconnect the suburbs and the inner city to create a more sustainable cityfile:///D:/gilda%20assignment/final%20draft.docx#_ftn1.

Nora Räthzel sum up the problems of social segregation and exclusion in her article:

“...isolated from Swedish society unemployed people from distant countries, living on social security, dwell in poorly serviced houses, passing their days in boring idleness.” (2005, p. 17)

In her idea unlike the native Swedes’ concentration, the immigrants’ concentration constitutes a problem. Immigrant dense areas suffer from unemployment, segregation, poor quality, and many other problems, also one of the other challenges are lack of sufficient funds for any progress and improvement to happen. According to Munck (2004) social exclusion is clearly observable in immigrant areas. Some areas in city have more reputation so people avoided living the parts with poor reputation and preferring to live in reputation places (Munck, 2004).

Malmo has suffered from a main shortage of cheap housing. When immigrants arrived in the 1960s and 1970s they frequently were offered housing at Rosengård, while at the same time (and, particularly, later) many Swedish nationals left the areafile:///D:/gilda%20assignment/final%20draft.docx#_ftn2.

According to media Rosengård suffers problem with unemployment and crime, as Local News mentioned “Behind the catch-all term 'social exclusion' is the more concrete issues of segregation, unemployment and poor living conditions… many people have come here in the last 5 years; they go to Rosengård, where they stay with relatives and friends. Because of this, there is a situation of overcrowding where five to six people live in a one-room apartment. Bad enough for adults, these conditions can be particularly hard on young people. Konstaninides argues that overcrowding forces children and young people out onto the streets: This is why children have nothing to do: there's no space”file:///D:/gilda%20assignment/final%20draft.docx#_ftn3.

As Brown (2010) stated in his article “Rosengård” from 1967-72 has become a symbol for high unemployment. While Sweden's official unemployment rate stands at around seven percent, nearly 40 percent of Rosengård working age residents are jobless. (Brown, 2010)

According to Jason M. article until recent years, Rosengård suffered from much higher crime rates than other neighborhoods in Malmo. Despite a number of national and municipal programs aimed to make a better neighborhood conditions, Rosengård and certain Fosie neighborhoods have higher violence and crime rates and social welfare dependence than most other sections of Malmo.file:///D:/gilda%20assignment/final%20draft.docx#_ftn4

1.3. Aim



The aim of this study is to investigate and get more knowledge on the subject of segregation in Rosengård. It aims to acquire knowledge about the reasons why many immigrants live in Rosengård. The study also want to find out what are the problems of Rosengård according to its residents, whether the experiences the same problems that Rosengård is said to have in the media. In order to reach a useful conclusion the following questions have to be answered:

• What are the reasons for many people of different ethnic groups to live in Rosengård?
• What are the challenges of segregation in Rosengård?
• What are the problems of Rosengård according to the residents? Do they experience the same problems that are presented about Rosengård in the media?

1.4. Disposition

This paper adopts the following structure. Following the introduction, chapter 2 present theories part and explain the concept of segregation and its process in Sweden and Malmo, then concentrate on the segregation in Rosengård and present the area of study. Research design and data collection methods are explained in chapter 3, then in chapter 4 explain and analysis the result of survey. At the end in chapter 5 it presents the conclusion and I reflect on the analysis and give suggestions for future research in the study field.

1. 2. Theory

2.1. Social Segregation in Sweden

According to Andersson (2007) immigration to Sweden came in three main groups: “immigration due to the Second World War, labour immigration between 1950s and 60s, and refugee and family reunion immigration from the 1970s up to present time”. The highest immigration wave to Sweden was about 100 000 people in 2007 that broke the record of immigration to the country. According to OECD (2007) there are about nine million people in Sweden are from Scandinavian Nordic and other ethnic groups.

The base of immigrant policy in Sweden that has developed in 1970s is on three objectives: partnership, free choice, and equality. The partnership is alliance and endurance between immigrant population and Sweden, free choice is the guarantee of the right of immigrant to keep and maintain their cultural heritage, and the equality means that the immigrants have the same opportunities and right same as native Swedish people in employment, housing, social services and so on (Ministry of Labour, Sweden, 1995, p. 5).

According to Castles and Miller (1993) and Roseman et al. (1996) one of the important policy challenges in all EU countries in recent years is social integration and immigration of new different ethnic groups. The process of immigration is not a new subject; the history of all European countries is the result of immigration of people of different origin and culture. Still none of the EU countries has consciously set out to make a multicultural society (multicultural society including many ethnic and cultural groups sharing the same space), that for different reasons such as economic, social ,or political reasons immigrate to these countries and all immigration countries have face up different challenges of integration. Of course the governments have developed some policies and goals for the diversity of refugees and immigrants which are the important factors in all societies.

In the literature, there are several discussions about the advantages and disadvantages of segregation. For instance, the spatial population of a single ethnic immigrant group causes to increase the communication between the group members and also encourage improving the ethnical institution and businesses. However, residential segregation in particular housing tenures or spatially can decrease the chances for structural integration, particularly in cases of employment, language, and education ( Robert A. Murdie and Lars-Erik,1997).

According to Baldwin (2007) Sweden has had a reputation for successful implementation of integration policy in Europe; however, today segregation is a serious challenge. Rosengård in Malmo is one of the examples of the segregation challenge (Baldwin, 2007)file:///D:/gilda%20assignment/final%20draft.docx#_ftn5.

Segregation problem was first identified in the 1940s and 1950s when immigrant households moved to new multi-family housing. Segregation refers to the physical or spatial separation of groups of people, most often based on indicators such as race, ethnicity, culture, and socioeconomic status (Massey, Condran, & Denton, 1987). This separation of groups of people often results in subpopulations having different, patterned sets of exposures, opportunities, and resources (Kaplan, 1996).

According to Lopez (1981) and Williams& Collins (2001) Residential segregation is race differentially structures access to jobs, education, income, and other public goods and is believed to provide the basis for the creation and maintenance of nearly all other forms of institutional and societal segregation.

To provide good housing for all different household types, the new rental buildings were made but mainly occupied by young adults. So the main concern became segregation by age or the stage in the life-cycle. Ethnic segregation at the beginning of the 1970s was identified as a social problem, particularly for the migrants of Greece, Turkey, and Italy who concentrate in new built multi-family houses (SOU, 1975, p. 51).

Brama (2008) states that ethnic segregation occurs along an ethnic hierarchy, where the immigrants occupying function position same as Western Asians or Africans are the most group of segregation, while the residential samples of Western Europeans less or more follow the Swedish majority. Segregation impacts individually on the immigrants on a collective scale and also conflicts with “sustainability” policies and goals in Malmo city.

It has been discussed that it is possible that immigrant self-segregated, however studies have shown that it is Swedes, usually with higher income thus have a better chance to choose where to live, that have left the immigrant dense area, the housing policy papers say the immigrant concentration is on the base of immigrants own desire to live near to their own kind. In medium levels, it is expected to be beneficial for the improvement of cultural identities and language of ethnic minorities (Helsingin asunto-ohjelm, 1998& 2000).file:///D:/gilda%20assignment/final%20draft.docx#_ftn6

Employment and entering the labor market means improvement of the personality, increasing social participation, and also social development of a person (Regeringskansliet, 2008 a)file:///D:/gilda%20assignment/final%20draft.docx#_ftn7 . To combat by social exclusion, many plans and policy has been perform by Sweden government for increasing the employment among immigrants; such as national plans to prevent social exclusion and poverty in 2001, 2003, and 2006, but statistical data show that still it is difficult for some immigrants to enter the labor market. (Andersson, 2007)

2.2. Social Segregation in Malmo





Malmö is the third largest city in Sweden, with a population of over 280,000, of which 80,000 were born abroad. Citizens are from 174 nationalities, 147 different languages, except Nordic languages (Persson, C., 2009). Malmo has the highest ratio of immigrants of all of Sweden’s major cities (City of Malmo, 2007). From 1990, the percentage of the population of Malmö born outside Sweden has increased from 16% to 30% (City of Malmö, 2007) whereas the percentage of people born abroad in the whole country was 13.8% in 2009. Out of Malmö’s whole population, at least 20% is said to be Muslim (Michaels, 2009). According to recent statistics from Malmö city (2007), 36% of Malmo's populations were people with a foreign background, 27% of which were born outside Sweden and 9% born in Sweden with both parents born outside the country. Following the same process as other metropolitan cities in Sweden, Malmo has accepted higher percentage of asylum seekers from Asian countries in recent years, most of them come from Middle Eastern countries (i.e. Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria)file:///D:/gilda%20assignment/final%20draft.docx#_ftn8 .

City of Malmo, same as many metropolitan cities, is facing challenges for the integration of the immigrant population. By take a look at the media and press, we can know that a broad range of socio-economic problems related to integration. There are many issues by title of ‘non-integration’, those related to integration are different from welfare dependency and high rates of unemployment to violent actions, riots against the police ,and different crime in certain famous immigrant neighborhoods for example Rosengård in Malmo or Sodertalje as little Baghdad in suburbs of Stockholm (The Local, 2007, 2008, 2009).

Non-integration in main part of the society has negative effect on an individual level; it also can effect and gets affected by the goals and specifications of the city. The City of Malmö has some patterns (same as Rosengård) of socioeconomic and ethnic segregation. Large housing estates were built in the margin parts of the city as a result of the Million Homes programs in the 60s and 70s. The big building blocks became neighborhoods, by the Swedish housing policies, with many foreign born residents especially with those immigrate as refugees.

Approximately 40% of the population of immigrant in Malmo lives in two city districts of Fosie and Rosengård now (NEHOM, 2002). According to NEHOM these neighborhoods are facing by so many problems such as long term unemployment, high dependency on social welfare, and segregation (ibid).

According to Malmo city (2008) in the past decade, Malmo has changed its reputation as Commercial center of southern Sweden to city of knowledge. The current powerful parts in Malmo are retail and wholesale trade, construction, logistics, and poverty (Malmo city, 2008). After the development of the trans-Oresund commuting, Malmo’s labor market has just shown signs of improvement because the jobs that provided by the city needed higher skills and qualifications and only some specific residents could get it (ibid).

Difficulty in getting job means that Malmo residents have to find a solution way for this challenge. They should have high qualification such as higher skills, higher educational level for the new requirements to enter the labor market because according to the statistical data highly educated people are more success to gain job in Sweden (SCB, 2008). Therefore the difficulty of entering to labor market is an important challenge for the immigrants with different backgrounds, ethnics, and developmental levels and it is very hard to do that even in low skilled labor markets such as factories. Despite the reformulation of the city’s identity from a working-class city to a city of knowledge the socioeconomic and urban segregation of migrants still exists (Scuzzarello, 2008).



2.3. Presentation of Rosengård



Rosengård, literally "Rose garden", is a city district in Malmö, Sweden. As of 1 January 2007, the population was 21,955, of which 60 percent were born outside of Sweden. In 2008 a total 86% of the population in the city district was of foreign background. Although frequently incorrectly referred to as a suburb, Rosengård constitutes an integral part of Malmö city and is, contrary to common belief, fairly centrally located, neighboring the city's Centrum district. Rosengård was built between 1960- 1970 with the Million Programme. It was regarded as kind of a futuristic neighborhood. Malmö suffered from a significant shortage of cheap housing. When immigrants arrived in the 1960s and 1970s they frequently were offered housing at Rosengård, and at the same time (and, particularly, later) many Swedish nationals left the area.[9]

The eastern district of Rosengård has the highest proportion of immigrants. As of 1 January 2005, 59% of residents were first generation migrants, while 25% were second generation migrants with two foreign parents and a further 10% had one foreign parent In total, 84% of the residents of this district can be described as having an immigrant background, while only 16% have two Swedish parents (City of Malmo, 2008).

Due to the lack of demographic data, it is difficult to identify the main minority and majority ethnic and religious groups in Malmo. There are people from all over the world in Rosengård such as immigrant and refugees, those who have come from their countries to find better life, better work conditions, students and people with low income who are waiting for the improvement of their situation (ibid).

Table 1: Immigrants in Rosengård: The top 10 countries of births excluding Sweden for the population of Rosengård;

Iraq	2,957
Former Yugoslavia	2,172
Lebanon	1,370
Bosnia and Herzegovina	1,221
Somalia	550
Denmark	541
Poland	476
Afghanistan	406
Turkey	357
Macedonia	275

2.4. Social Segregation in Rosengård



According to Ericsson (2000) Rosengård is a result of the “million programs”. In April 2007, it has 22 000 residents and another 600 people trying for get their asylum. About 84 percent of the populations of Rosengård are foreign origin, 59 percent born in another country and 26 percent born in Sweden but with parents born abroad. The largest groups of immigrants are from Yugoslavia and Iraq. 37 percent of the population is working. 38 percent are under the age of 20. There are 1366 households that get support for maintenance. 17 percent of the population is living in confined quarters (ibid).

In 2006, the information that Malmo City showed that only 39 percent of the residents in Rosengård from the age of 20 to 64 were working. Different authors connected the high rate of unemployment, social welfare dependence, and high residential turnover with the characteristic of the Swedish labor market and also to the forms of discrimination; they did not care about the structure and physical location.

Ann-Katrin Backlund (2003) in her report said that the Swedish labor market has changed from construction jobs to services positions that need broad communication, information, and skills. Outsourcing, Automation and horizontal, team-based organizational structures in Swedish labor market are different tendency that have placed higher desires on the teamwork skills and communication of employees. She also explained that theses tendency have made more difficulty for immigrants to enter and keep employment in Swedish labor market (Backlund, 2003). In other place Hagetoft and Cars (2002) claimed that the high rate of unemployment in Rosengård has to do with labor market discrimination, cultural differences, and not with low physical isolation or physical access.

“The immigrant dense neighborhoods of "Rosengård" and "Kroksbäck" seem to be known as "unsafe" neighborhoods having many problems related to drug abuse and also with the police. The 2008 riots in Rosengård as well as the constant intentional fire incidents seem to support this belief” (The Local, 2008, 2009)

According to Ristilammi (1994) from the moment of construction of Rosengård, its picture has been more or less negative. There were bad appearance housing conditions in the central parts of Malmo in 1950 and 1960s. There were almost worker dwellings that were located there all the way to the end of the 1960s.

Vezire & Rebecca in their study stated that about 20% of the residents of Rosengård were immigrants in 1972. It continuously increased, so in 1998 it became 80% and in 2007 it reached to 94%. Many unwilling moved in there after the negative picture that media and press display of Rosengård. All of the representatives from the housing estates hoped that the criticism would ignore and pass, same as Lorensborg and Augustenborg, however, the criticism for Rosengård the criticism continued and it remained unattractive (Vezire shala& Rebecca Quainoo, 2007).

1. 3. Methodology

This a single case study on Segregation challenges in Rosengård. It is important and necessary to determine which research method is conducted to acquire a reliable result. The most common use for the method is quantitative studies, which normally are used in difference ways in both data collection techniques and data analysis procedures (Saunders et al., 2009).

In researching this thesis I have used quantitative method. According to Yin (2009) research design is as “the logical sequence that connects the empirical data to a study’s initial research questions and, ultimately, to its conclusions”. Quantitative methods were selected on the basis of their inclusion to access information appropriate to the research questions. I use quantitative method as it is appropriate for me to find answers in case of Rosengård to what are the reasons for many people of different ethnic groups to live in Rosengård? , what are the challenges of segregation in Rosengård? , and what are the problems of Rosengård according to the residents? Do they experience the same problems that are presented about Rosengård in the media?. Quantitative studies rely on data collection such as questionnaire, survey and experiment, which consist of numerical data (Saunders et al., 2009).

I have used a mixture of primary and secondary data. For the primary data, I have prepared a set of questions in order to be able to analyze. The questionnaires was made up of 18 questions, the purpose of the question is to understand Rosengård residents point of view about this area and the probably challenges of segregation. The question subjects were about the residents status in Rosengård such as their occupation, duration time to live there, their attitude about their living area, and their idea about the problem of Rosengård (the whole questions are included in annex) .150 online questionnaires were distributed in university website, Facebook, and also by sending to those who live in Rosengård and some who I knew them. Unfortunately, only 65 questionnaires were returned. The case study as a research design is validated only when the case itself (not the sample it generates) is the object of research interests, and that the researcher aims to provide an in-depth elucidation of the case (Bryman, 2008). I try to collect the data in responsible, ethical, and logical way. I consider the data to score relatively high on internal validity, because they are suitable to be analyzed by the theoretical concepts I have chosen. To have in-depth result, I have made a written form short explanation about the aim of my research to make it clear for the respondents and I have send it beside of my survey. Because of the limitation of time and difficulty of access to the residents who know English, I use internet-based survey and distributed in different website such as Facebook, weblogs. This has an impact on the type of respondents I was able to reach. A large group of respondents are students who live in Rosengård, who are familiar with computer and website uses.

The main source of my secondary data was a literature review from relevant literatures in specific concepts in the form of reviews, articles, journals, reports, thesis and other documents from variety sources such as university library, and other organizations. Internet is also the useful source of accessing to the important information about Rosengård and my subject. First of all I searched for the literature that would give me material to support my investigation process in Rosengård. In order to easy access to the literature search, I concentrated on the key words: immigrant area, social segregation, and challenges of segregation. The empirical material that forms the basis of this study is a survey using internet-based questionnaires.

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