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In this study, we explore whether the economic integration of immigrants may function as a stepping stone to their political integration. We show that there are strong theoretical reasons to expect entrance into the labour market to be pivotal for the political socialisation of immigrants in the new host country and in extension for their opportunities to stand for office. Empirically, we make use of Swedish register data and study whether labour market entrance among refugees affects their chances of being nominated for political office in Swedish municipal councils. We focus on refugees that arrived in Sweden between 1985 and 1994 and explore whether they became political nominees in seven consecutive elections between 1994 and 2014. Our results indicate that getting an early foothold in the labour market has a significant positive effect on the likelihood of running for office. These results hold even when we make use of more exogenous variation in the labour market conditions that refugees encountered when they arrived in Sweden, which provides some support that labour market entrance may have a causal effect on political candidacy among refugees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Immigrants are underrepresented in most democratic parliaments. To explain the immigrant–native representation gap, existing research emphasizes party gatekeepers and structural conditions. But a more complete account must consider the possibility that the representation gap begins at the supply stage. Are immigrants simply less interested in elected office? To test this explanation, we carried out an innovative case–control survey in Sweden. We surveyed elected politicians, candidates for local office, and residents who have not run; stratified these samples by immigrant status; and linked all respondents to local political opportunity structures. We find that differences in political ambition, interest, and efficacy do not help explain immigrants' underrepresentation. Instead, the major hurdles lie in securing a candidate nomination and being placed on an electable list position. We conclude that there is a sufficient supply of potential immigrant candidates, but immigrants' ambition is thwarted by political elites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While recent research finds strong evidence that birth order affects outcomes such as education, IQ scores, earnings, and health, the evidence for effects on political outcomes is more limited. Using population-wide data from Sweden, our within-family estimates show that firstborns are significantly more likely to run for and be elected to political office. In addition, for the males in our sample we test whether a number of potential mechanisms account for the relationship between birth order and political participation. Disconfirming our expectations, the birth order effects are only marginally smaller when controlling for occupational economic status, cognitive ability, and leadership skills. Our results suggest that big brother, or for that matter big sister, not only sees us; to a certain extent he or she also rules us. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is well documented that voter turnout is lower among persons who grow up in families from a low socioeconomic status compared with persons from high-status families. This paper examines whether reforms in education can help reduce this gap. We establish causality by exploiting a pilot scheme preceding a large reform of Swedish upper secondary education in the early 1990s, which gave rise to exogenous variation in educational attainment between individuals living in different municipalities or born in different years. Similar to recent studies employing credible identification strategies, we fail to find a statistically significant average effect of education on political participation. We move past previous studies, however, and show that the reform nevertheless contributed to narrowing the voting gap between individuals of different social backgrounds by raising turnout among those from low socioeconomic status households. The results thus square well with other recent studies arguing that education is particularly important for uplifting politically marginalized groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the years, many suggestions have been made on how to reduce the importance of family background in political recruitment. In this study, we examine the effectiveness of one such proposal: the expansion of mass education. We utilize a difference-in-difference strategy to analyze how a large school reform launched in Sweden in the 1950s, which lengthened schooling and postponed tracking, affected the likelihood of individuals with different family backgrounds to run for public office. The data come from public registers and pertain to the entire Swedish population born between 1943 and 1955. The empirical analysis provides strong support for the view that improved educational opportunities for individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds can be an effective means to reduce the social bias of elected assemblies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]