Friday, July 11, 2025

Polaris of Enlightenment

Swedes are choosing not to have children – even in “good times”

Published 10 March 2025
– By Editorial Staff
In many ways, starting a family has never been easier than it is today - yet more and more people are choosing not to.
2 minute read

Birth rates across the Western world are falling sharply, with Sweden now having just 1.43 children per woman the lowest ever recorded.

It is often claimed that few children are born because of economic turmoil and “bad times” but this explanation is no longer valid, according to researchers.

It is certainly true that historically there has been a clear link between economic prosperity and childbearing, with significantly more children born during economic booms than during periods of mass unemployment and economic crises.

However, about 15 years ago, researchers began to notice that the birth rate was dropping significantly, even though the population was economically well-off and many people had a high standard of living.

– Something interesting is happening in Sweden around 2010 when fertility is declining despite the fact that we have economic growth, falling unemployment, and also zero interest rates, which means that money is more or less free. For many people, this means higher real incomes, says researcher Maria Stanfors, at the Department of Economic History at Lund University.

– All the measures that are usually used as economic indicators are developing positively, but fertility is falling. This perhaps indicates that the decline in fertility is not related to real economic conditions but is explained by something else.

No positive “equality effect”

Why Swedes and other European peoples are having fewer children even in good economic times is a complex question with many explanations and possible causes, but the trend is similar across the industrialized world.

Nor have the ‘gender equality’ efforts of Swedish governments led to an increase in birth rates – quite the opposite.

– Fertility has fallen despite good economic times and family policies have not deteriorated – quite the opposite. It has been suggested that the high fertility rates in the Nordic countries in the past were linked to gender equality. Not only that women work more and that we have relatively small wage gaps, but also that men do more unpaid housework and, above all, are more active fathers than in other countries. But fertility has fallen despite this.

Unclear future

– I think we have lost an understanding of the fantastic support we have in combining work and family in Sweden, and we still share the costs of having children to a greater extent than in other countries. Moreover, as a society, we have never been richer and healthier. The conditions for having children have never really been better, Stanfors continues.

She speculates that the birth rate may increase “in the near future”, but stresses that we do not know when this will happen nor why. According to the researcher, there is very little evidence that individual policy reforms would affect birth rates.

– The fact that all women, regardless of age and family status, behave similarly means that fertility varies. These variations are probably explained by several factors. Given the importance of demography for the sustainability of society, more should be invested in demographic research, says Maria Stanfors.

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Sweden’s Christian Democrats call for tax relief for families with children

Published yesterday 7:08
– By Editorial Staff
1 minute read

Swedish families with children should receive tax relief, according to the same model as Hungary. This is proposed by Christian Democrat leader Ebba Busch.

The catastrophically low birth rate has recently become a topic of discussion even among Swedish politicians. Childbirth in Sweden is at historically low levels. During 2023, an average of 1.43 children were born per woman – the lowest figure ever recorded. The standing solution advocated among Swedish politicians has been to bring foreigners to Sweden to replace the population.

The leader of the Christian Democrats Ebba Busch proposes on this theme to follow the Hungarian model, where families with children receive significant tax relief that increases for each child. The principle is to make it easier for one or later both parents to support themselves through work instead of benefits.

If current birth rate trends continue in Sweden, each new generation will be approximately 30 percent smaller than the previous one, which means major consequences including for the labor market and welfare system when fewer people of working age must support a growing elderly population.

 

Almost total halt for imported berry pickers in Sweden

Published 8 July 2025
– By Editorial Staff
2 minute read

The Swedish Migration Agency has rejected almost all applications for berry pickers for 2025. As recently as 2023, 5,000 permits were granted.

Citing years of indications that employment conditions in the berry industry are not being upheld, the Migration Agency has granted only 89 permits for berry picking this year. A total of 2,397 applications for berry pickers have been received for 2025.

Last year, the Migration Agency rejected all applications for berry pickers, but 1,272 applications were subsequently approved after court review.

The Migration Agency has also this year assessed that workers in the berry industry risk not having their employment conditions met. Therefore, the agency has decided to reject most of the applications for Thai berry pickers, says Hanna Geurtsen, Deputy Project Manager for Work Permits at the Migration Agency, in a press release.

This year, the Migration Agency explains, all employers active in berry picking have chosen to apply for permits via the EU’s Seasonal Workers Directive. The difference when applying for a work permit as a seasonal worker, compared with the national main track for work permits, is among other things that the berry pickers this year are directly employed by a company in Sweden and not via a foreign staffing agency.

It’s partly about having an employment contract signed by both parties and that the employment conditions must be in line with Swedish collective agreements. For the majority of the applications received this year, these requirements have not been met, says Hanna Geurtsen.

The berry companies that have been rejected have the possibility to appeal these decisions in court, the agency adds in its press release.

Number of berry picking permits granted by the Migration Agency in recent years:

2025: 89
2024: 0 (1,272 were approved after court review)
2023: 5,372
2022: 6,594
2021: 5,175

Swedish government to map immigrants’ opinions

Published 7 July 2025
– By Editorial Staff
The Liberals' new integration minister Simona Mohamsson on the left, on the right migrants who have landed in Europe (archive image).
1 minute read

The Swedish government is now launching a project to examine immigrants’ opinions compared to native Swedes.

The results will serve as guidance for future integration efforts, says the Liberal Party’s new integration minister Simona Mohamsson about the project.

World Values Survey, WVS, is an international research program that examines people’s values in everything from social, political, economic, religious and cultural aspects.

The Swedish government is now paying WVS €450,000 to examine how values differ between non-Western immigrants and those with entirely Swedish backgrounds. During the autumn, around 3,000 people will be interviewed.

“We are an extreme country”

According to surveys that World Values Survey has previously conducted, the differences between immigrants and native Swedes are very large regarding views on things like divorce, premarital sex, abortion and homosexuality, where Sweden overall stands out as an exceptionally liberal-oriented country.

We are an extreme country in a good way. For people who become part of our society, it becomes somewhat difficult to navigate that map, says Mohamsson about the project to the Bonnier-owned newspaper DN, which among other things highlights that immigrants are more skeptical toward homosexual relationships.

There’s a whole generation of girls who don’t get to choose who they want to love or boys who can’t come out of the closet, she says.

Study: Fluoride in drinking water may impact children’s cognitive ability

Published 6 July 2025
– By Editorial Staff
According to the study, higher fluoride levels in pregnant women were linked to impaired cognitive abilities in their children at the ages of five and ten.
2 minute read

A study from Karolinska Institutet links fluoride in drinking water to impaired cognition in children. In particular, the researchers saw a negative impact on children’s verbal abilities.

In Sweden, fluoride is found naturally in low levels in drinking water, while in several countries, such as the United States, Canada and Australia, it is added to municipal water to prevent tooth decay. It is also used in toothpaste to protect teeth against decay.

Researchers at the Karolinska Institutet have investigated how early exposure to fluoride affects children’s cognitive abilities. The study involved 500 mothers and their children in rural Bangladesh, where fluoride is naturally present in drinking water at levels comparable to Sweden. The researchers measured fluoride levels in the mothers during pregnancy and later in the children via urine samples. The children’s cognitive abilities were then tested by psychologists at ages five and ten.


The article was originally published in The Nordic Times on March 23, 2025.


The study, published in Environmental Health Perspectives, found that higher fluoride levels in pregnant women were linked to impaired cognitive abilities in their children at ages five and ten. The impact was most evident on children’s verbal comprehension and their ability to interpret and process sensory input. In contrast, the researchers found no statistically significant link between fluoride levels in the urine of five-year-olds and their cognition.

–  This could be due to the shorter exposure, but also because the measurements are not as reliable in younger children due to greater variations in how fluoride is absorbed and accumulated in the body, especially in the skeleton, says Maria Kippler, associate professor at the Institute of Environmental Medicine at Karolinska Institutet, in a press release.

Even low levels can have negative effects

The fluoride levels that were linked to poorer cognitive development were below the WHO and EU limits for drinking water. However, the researchers point out that toothpaste is rarely a significant source of exposure, as it is not intended to be swallowed, but emphasize the importance of children learning to spit it out.

Our results support the hypothesis that even relatively low levels of fluoride can have negative effects on children’s early development, says Kippler.

However, the researchers emphasize that this is an observational study and therefore no firm conclusions can be drawn about cause and effect. It is therefore important to assess the overall results of several similar studies.

– Further research is important to inform the assessment of appropriate fluoride limits. Even small changes in cognition at the population level can have large consequences for public health, says Kippler.

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