Easier permanent residence kept more international PhDs in Sweden, study finds
Sweden retained more international PhD graduates after making permanent residence easier to obtain, an IFAU study finds. More also enrolled in Swedish-language classes.
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The findings, highlighted by IFAU on 3 September, concern a 2014 reform allowing doctoral students from outside the EU/EEA to count study time towards permanent residence. Their partners also gained the right to work throughout the doctoral studies.
Three years after graduation, the reform had increased the probability of remaining in Sweden by 10.5 percentage points, about 18% in relative terms, the researchers estimate.
Enrolment in Swedish for Immigrants classes, SFI, rose by 6.2 percentage points from a pre-reform level of 27%.
Akib Khan and Erik Lundberg's study covers PhD graduates from 2008–2017 who began their studies by autumn 2013. They compared changes among non-EU/EEA graduates with those among EU/EEA graduates before and after the reform. The estimate assumes the groups would otherwise have followed similar retention trends.
The retention increase was strongest among graduates in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, and those exposed to the reform for longer.
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