“Dem har ju andra förutsättningar än en inrikes född.” - Socialsekreterares beskrivningar av långvarigt ekonomiskt biståndsmottagande bland utrikes födda klienter.

Sammanfattning: The aim of this study was to provide a further understanding of the reasons why foreign-born people remain in long-term need of financial aid from the social welfare system. This study focuses particularly on foreign-born clients who are capable of working but receive financial aid due to unemployment. We look into how social workers work to help foreign-born clients to leave their need for long-term financial aid. Further, we analyze how the challenges in the work of helping clients can be understood. The method used was qualitative interviews with eight social workers who work in the social assistance unit from various parts of Sweden. The interviews were analyzed with theoretical concepts such as identity loss, identity confusion, and empowerment. The results indicate that foreign-born clients may have struggles concerning identity loss due to their migration. In addition, this sense of identity loss furthers identity confusion caused by socio-cultural differences between their home country and Sweden. The aforementioned struggles could be possible contributing factors to the clients remaining in need of financial aid. The concept of empowerment helped us to understand the social workers' descriptions of how they help the clients to leave their need for long-term financial aid, where both motivational interviewing and discipline appeared to be ways of working with the aid recipients. Furthermore, we analyzed the clients as part of a system that, with activation requirements, is eventually considered to help them leave their need for long-term financial aid by establishing them on the labor market. A result indicated that foreign-born clients possibly express resistance towards the system they are expected to comply with to obtain financial aid. That by following the requirements, which according to our analyses may be unreasonable.