In my work, I meet many international professionals who tell me that they are being underpaid compared to their Swedish counterparts. However as this is anecdotal evidence, I thought it a good idea to start looking for something more substantial that could back up this claim.
The most recent statistics on the topic is from 2017, comes from Statistics Sweden (SCB) and shows the following:
- Swedish born professionals between the ages of 20 to 64 years had an annual salary of 336 00 SEK-
- foreign-born professionals between the ages of 20 to 64 had an annual salary of 237 000 SEK.
So what does that tell us? Basically that on average, foreign-born professionals are paid 30% less than their Swedish peers.
Are all underpaid equally?
Well, no. The size of this salary gap differs depending on how long the foreign-born professional has lived in Sweden.
- The mean annual salary for someone who had been in Sweden for less than five years was 64 000 SEK. Which means a salary that is80% lower than the one of a Swedish-born professional.
- However, foreign-born professionals who had spent more than 20 years in Sweden, were making only 10% less than their Swedish peers.
The country of origin also impacts your salary. For instance, if you are male and born in a European country, you are likely to have a higher income than a foreign born woman or a man from a country outside of Europe.
SACO made a similar study, also in 2017, where they looked more in depth at differences in pay between Swedish-born and foreign-born qualified professionals. It turns out that when you take essential factors into account, such as education level, type of position, etc, foreign-born qualified professionals have an income that is 8% lower than Swedish-born professionals with similar qualifications.
The difference seems to be the biggest within the field of economics and the smallest in medicine. Saco writes that this is the first time they analyse the difference in income between foreign-born and Swedish-born professionals, and they also say this is a question that deserves more attention. However, I can’t find any more studies or statistics on the topic since 2017.
Now I’m curious. What is your experience of this? Do you think you are being paid less than your Swedish colleagues? What do you think are the reasons for foreign-born professionals being paid less than their Swedish peers? What can we do to make this change? Let us know in the comments!
Want to make sure you are not underpaid?
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Further reading
Check out more posts from Sofi:
- Three mistakes international professionals make at job interviews in Sweden.
- Three things you didn’t know about salaries in Sweden.
- Why e-learning can help you take control of the chaos that is re-starting your career in Sweden.
- The dos and don’ts of a Swedish workplace.
- How to make a good impression at work – in Sweden.
I’m glad that there are finally official statistics that back up what we have known all along.
In my particular case it was the lack of Swedish language skills that was used as motive for not increasing my salary. (Even though I was hired without the requirement of having this skill). It took a few years to finish SFI+SAS and become fully comfortable with speaking the language. Meanwhile my salary remained stagnant even though I gained experience and even took on a senior role with more responsibility. I had to fight for 2 years to get my salary adjusted to the midrange level (according to Saco).
It was very clear from the start that my Eastern European education was considered inferior to the Swedish university and previous job experience abroad did not count. However, in order to be hired I needed to be much better that the Swedish applicants (on top of being cheaper).
I am still “luckier” than my friends who come from countries outside the EU and whose degrees are not even recognized.
Same here. Victim of an unfair treatment. I’m French, I’ve worked in and outside of Europe. I was hired at the lowest possible level in my company. Swedish was not a requirement at all. In my team there were people that just graduated from university or that just had a bachelor degree without much experience and that were paid more than me by 13% or more. Even after two years in that company I’m still considered as below average. In their system HR assigned me a different nationality than the one that I actually have but in case it should never be used as a parameter to determine what is your worth. I faced HR with unionen to argue over my situation but the answer from the HR department was that they don’t care about my experience nor about my diploma and that it’s on a case to case basis that they determine what is the right salary for an employee (this statement literally doesn’t mean anything). They denied me a relocation package when I asked for it while it was granted to a friend of mine who was hired from France as well. I don’t get any answers when I ask my manager to explain to me how it’s possible in such a big company.