The Subnational Impact of the Mortality of International Migrants on Estimates of County-Level Period Life Expectancy in Sweden, 1990-2023

Courtney Franklin , University of Salford
Matthew Wallace, University of Salford

Migrants are increasingly contributing to national life expectancy (PLE) gains due to their lower mortality risks and increasing population sizes. Migrants’ mortality risks and settlement patterns vary across regions. However, prior work has focused almost exclusively on national-level trends and little is known about the between-region differences in migrants’ impact on PLE Using comprehensive Swedish register data from 1990–2023, we adopted a subnational perspective and assessed whether there is spatial variation in the impact of international migrants on PLE within a major migrant host country. We operationalised the gap in PLE between (a) the total resident population, (b) native-born population and (b) migrant population of each county. Over time, migrants in nearly every county experienced a remarkable reversal, from lower to higher life expectancy than the native-born population of each county. Importantly, however, there was considerable spatial variation in the timing of the reversal and magnitude of the negative effects in the 1990s and positive effects in the 2010s that have the potential to impact county-level comparisons of life expectancy within Sweden. We also reveal an important gender difference in the effect of migrants on life expectancy. We provide unique insight into how life expectancy trends differ within Sweden among the total population, native-born and foreign-born population and report how the effect of migrants has transformed. These findings add to a small body of evidence from a select number of high-income countries that show migration status is playing an increasingly relevant role in shaping national mortality outcomes.

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 Presented in Session P5. Health, Mortality, and Ageing 1