Abstract
To what extent are national and local governments in Sweden successful in counteracting social inequalities in metropolitan areas? With strong social welfare institutions, Sweden would be particularly well suited for compensating for social cleavages, but are the policies successful? The study is based on a statistical analysis of social inequalities within the areas of compulsory and upper secondary education in the two largest Swedish metropolitan regions—Greater Stockholm and Greater Göteborg. The analysis indicates that compensatory spending is unable to reduce the inequalities between the municipalities in the regions. Instead, educational performance remains strongly linked to their socioeconomic preconditions. Not even in a Swedish metropolitan setting is the place equality regime able to fully counteract fundamental differences in wealth and status generated by market forces.
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Lidström, A. (2017). The Equal Metropolis? Can Social Policies Counteract Diversity in Swedish Metropolitan Settings?. In: Sellers, J., Arretche, M., Kübler, D., Razin, E. (eds) Inequality and Governance in the Metropolis. Comparative Territorial Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57378-0_12
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