Immigrants’ Contribution to the Society : A Comparison between Sweden and the County of Jönköping

Sammanfattning: Our aim in this thesis has been to look at the foreign citizens’ share of costs and benefits associated to the society in Sweden. We have compared Sweden on the national level to Jönköping County on the regional level to see if there are any deviations. We have conducted a new calculation approach in order to present the contributions given by immigrants and the associated costs. Figures are to a large extent viewed in relative terms in the thesis, and specified in concrete terms in the appendix. We have selected a series of four costs and one benefit in order to show how an estimation of the costs or benefits could be made. We have found that immigrants tend to work harder than the natives, but at a lower wage level. Even so they do not compensate for the costs to the society applied to immigrants.