Ett holländskt fenomen i Värmland : Faktorer bakom och effekter av en holländsk inflyttning

Sammanfattning: Abstract During the last five years there has been a considerable immigration from the Netherlands to Värmland in Sweden. INVA, Invest in Värmland, wanted to highlight this phenomenon and therefore contacted Karlstad University to make a survey about how extensive the immigration is and what consequences it brings for the business life and municipalities in Värmland. We were luckily chosen to perform this research and the main focus in this study has been the following questions: • Why do the Dutchmen choose to buy their house in Värmland? • What are the main reasons for leaving the Netherlands? • What consequences does the immigration cause for the business life in Värmland? • How do the Dutchmen experience the contact with Swedish authorities? To answer the questions we designed a questionnaire that was sent to 200 Dutch house purchasers. The ambition was to survey all the Dutch house purchasers in Värmland, but with the time constrains and the municipalities having problem to find complete data, we limited the survey to 200 households. To sample more information eleven interviews were made with Dutch families, brokers and local authorities. The most important factor behind the Dutchmen moving to Värmland is the nature and the calmness. Other factors that were mentioned in the survey are the mentality of the people who live in Värmland, a good place to raise your children and house prices. The main reasons for leaving the Netherlands are lack of space, social aspects, work and economic motives. The first big investment that is done by the Dutchmen is buying a house, the consequences of this act is higher house prices. The consuming of items on the local market is another indirect investment that is positive for the local businessmen. 60 % of the Dutchmen that moves to Värmland for permanent living starts their own business or bring their company from the Netherlands. One of the most common problems when buying the house was the poor language skills among the local brokers. Some of the respondent requested the brokers to speak Dutch and some required that the brokers should speak better English. In the future this problem might disappear because during the last year there are some Dutchmen who has started to work together with the local brokers. The contact with Swedish authorities was considered positive in general but some of the Dutchmen had problems to get a social security number and some had problems finding information about the Swedish tax system.