Migration in Times of Economic Growth and Recession

The industrial cities of the twentieth century were intimately dependent on and characterized by migration. This chapter focuses on describing and analyzing migration flows and migrant characteristics in relation to the general economic development of the industrial city of Landskrona. During the first decades of the century, migration tended to be circular between the city and the countryside. Migrants were predominantly young, and the flows reflected volatile industrial development. After World War II, expanding industries required laborers, and inflow from Sweden was supplemented by labor immigration from abroad. At the same time, middle-class families moved to suburbs outside the city. With the industrial crises of the 1970s, out-migration was larger than in-migration. It was mainly white-collar groups that left the town since unskilled and lower-skilled workers had few alternatives. From the mid-1990s, an economic recovery took place resulting in a positive net-migration. This time, in-migrants increasingly came from non-Western countries.